Yggdrasil High
by roseflower19
Summary: Thor, Sif, Loki, and Sigyn have many misadventures as they try to navigate the halls and social problems of a magical high school.


**Yggdrasil High **

**Chapter One**

Yggdrasil High. Even before I transferred here this year, I'd heard a lot about it. Like rumors that those who died in gym class went to Valholl, the principal Odin's office at the back of the Asgard floor, where they'd prepare to fight with Odin at Ragnarok, the death of the deities who went to school at Asgard. I hoped this wasn't true, or I'd never go to gym class.

There were eight other floors as well. On the lower levels were: Muspelheim, where the furnace was; Niflheim, where the A/C was/Hel, where those who _didn't _die in gym class went; and Svartalfheim, where the Svartalf kids learned metalworking. On the ground floors were Jotunheim, where the Jotunheim kids did—well, nobody really knew _what_ they did, and Midgard, for the human students. Above that was Asgard, where the deities went and where I'd been accepted (my parents were psyched, as it was super prestigious to get in there); Vanaheim, where the Vanir deities had their lockers, though most of their classes were on the Asgard level; Alfheim, where the elf students studied magic; and High Heaven, where the deities would go in case of emergency.

Heimdall was the guard patrolling the Bilrost bridge leading from Asgard to Midgard and had a magic cellphone that could be heard anywhere, which he dialed if the school was in dire peril. Like when Ragnarok was to occur or something or somebody—nobody could say what—might cross the wall around the school. Odin was, of course, principal, and his wife Frigg was vice-principal. A little nepotism going on there, I suspected. I learned all this on my tour around the school before I came here. That and, never, _ever_ go on the elevators between floors. Though, from the sound of the stories circulating around, lots of students broke that one.

I quickly learned, too, I was at the bottom of the pecking order. My very first day at school, somebody tripped me on my way to the lockers; the boy ran off laughing, leaving me on the floor, all my dignity already gone. A silver-ringed, long-fingered hand helped me up. "Sorry about him," said a musical voice, like the lilt of a harp. "He's got an inflated head because he's the principal's son."

I almost laughed at the mental image and then choked on my laugh. I was face-to-face with possibly the cutest boy I'd ever met. His disheveled red-black hair swept around his long, slightly-smirking face and over his shoulders, and he was in almost all black—ripped black jeans, black combat boots, and a black T-shirt—except for his oversized military-style jacket in green. He had black fingernails, too, and lots of earrings. But his eyes, rimmed with kohl, were the greenest I'd ever seen, greener than aged copper.

I wanted to say something witty but couldn't talk. "You okay?" he asked. "Got choked on something?"

"N—no," I stammered, my face turning red. I _was _making an impression all right, just not a favorable one. Fighting the urge to dive into my locker, I said, "My name's Sigyn. What's yours?"

"Loki." He leaned into the locker, his smile broadening. "If you need anything, just give me a call."

Someone _very _big and very muscular, probably a jock, put his arm around him, forcing him farther into the locker. "You hitting up the girls again?" The jock, who had a mane of red hair and flashing brown eyes, winked at me.

"Get off, Thor," Loki said, shoving him back.

"Watch out for this one," Thor said to me. "He might look scary, but he's the class clown."

"And _he's _the class idiot." Loki jabbed a thumb in Thor's direction.

"You want to say that to Mjollnir?" Thor patted a tiny hammer pendant at his belt.

"Wha—" I started; I must be missing something.

"Thor, there you are." A blonde, in a swishing blue tunic and leggings, grabbed Thor by the arm. "We have five minutes to get to class; you don't want to be late to gym again this year, do you?" Seeing me, she grabbed my hand and gave me an enthusiastic handshake. "I'm Sif. What's your name?"

"Sigyn." Somehow, my hole-eaten jeans and tattered plaid shirt didn't hold up to her fashionable outfit.

"Nice to meet you. You must be new; I don't believe I've seen you before."

"No, I _am _new here."

"Welcome." She smiled. "Don't let the guys get to you, that one especially." She nodded at Loki. "He had about twelve girlfriends last year alone; I wouldn't get too involved."

"I did not," he protested, but the bell rang for class.

"We've got to go, or we'll be late to gym. See you, Sigyn!" With a whirl of blonde hair, she and Thor were off.

I checked my own schedule. "Where is the horticulture room?" I asked Loki.

"That way, down the hall; can't miss it 'cause it's green. Be careful of the teacher, Jord; she's a tough one sometimes."

And I was already late. Stuffing my bag and running down the hall, I stopped when he hadn't moved. "You going to class?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I can't get a higher grade in my first class anyway, so why bother?"

Because that's how you keep a high grade, but I didn't say so. Before I could ask if people really did die in gym class or if he really had had twelve girlfriends in one year, he loped off down the hall. "See you at lunch."

"Yeah, see you."

"Are you in this class, or not?" The teacher poked her head out of the greenhouse; she was tall and serious-looking.

"Yes, ma'am." I ducked inside. Already off to a great start.

#

I survived horticulture, amazingly; the teacher, Ms. Jord, gushed over a couple students' work, Idun's bright golden apples and Freyja's multicolored flowers, but she gave me a passing nod at the grasses I was trying to get to grow, so I _guess _I was okay. All through rune class and Norse class—the sagas (boring)—I shifted in my seat, counting down until lunch. _Would _I see him there?

When the bell rang for lunch, I fought through the crowd of hungry guys storming to the cafeteria and filled up a tray—salmon sandwiches, carrots, and watercress. All the tables were taken, except one in the very back, and nobody looked up as I walked past them to it. No Loki, Sif, or Thor in sight. Maybe their classes were late getting out.

Digging into my sandwich—lunch wasn't half-inedible—I waited, five minutes, ten minutes. Maybe they weren't coming at all.

A tray, loaded with salmon, plunked next to mine, and Loki swung his long legs over the bench, his knees brushing against mine. I blushed, a bucket of salt water in my stomach. "Hey," he grinned. "Sorry I'm late; Principal _Odin _showed up to class today and made everyone stay after." So he _did _go to class. Rolling his eyes, he said, "How was Jord the Gourd?"

I snorted into my sandwich. "She wasn't too rough; I think she _almost _liked me."

"I wouldn't want her disapproving of you just 'cause you're new." Dropping his voice, he said, "You know, she's a Jotuness; there aren't many of them teaching up here. It's only because she had a—_thing_, if you will, with Odin."

"I thought she looked a little—different." There was something about the Jotuns; it wasn't that they were unnaturally tall, but they did tend to be taller.

"You're not making fun of my mom, are you?" came Thor's rumbling voice as he and Sif squeezed in on my other side. His tray_s_—plural—were even more loaded with salmon.

"No, I would never do such a thing," Loki said innocently. Jord was Thor's _mom_?

"I should hope not, or I'll find some choice things to say about _your _mom—" Thor began, and Loki made a gesture as if to upend his tray at Thor.

"Cut it out, you two," Sif said. "Always bickering." She rolled her eyes at me. I couldn't figure them out—were they friends, or enemies?

"You survived," I said to Sif and Thor, because I couldn't think of how else to change the topic.

They exchanged befuddled glances and then burst out laughing. "They told you on the tour people die in gym class, didn't they?" Sif said. "People don't _usually _die in that class."

"_Usually_?" I echoed.

"There were some people carried out on stretchers today, but Thor's been teaching me some moves, so I've survived so far." She demonstrated a sucker-punch, and Thor thumped her on the back.

"That's my girl."

"Why I don't go to that class," Loki said, catching my eye, though whether he meant the "carried out on stretchers" part or the Sif/Thor part was unclear.

Trying to settle the queasiness in my stomach, I dug into my carrots. It wasn't that I _couldn't _pull a punch; it was that I really wanted to survive to college.

"That, and they say he's going to end up fighting Da—_Odin _at Ragnarok," Thor said to me.

What kind of school _was _this?

"I'm just not exactly on Team Odin, is all," Loki shrugged.

"He's been sent to the principal's office _lots _over the years," Sif said.

"She's still bitter 'cause I cut off her hair last year," Loki whispered to me.

"You _what_?" I asked, a little too loudly. A couple kids from the next table over turned to stare, including the blond guy who'd tripped me.

"It was only a joke," Loki said. "What's the big deal?"

"Again, Mjollnir's ready to take your jokes," Thor said, his hand at his belt.

Loki scooted farther away. "I know you can pull a punch."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Thor made Loki go to Svartalfheim to get me a gold wig," Sif explained to me. Maybe that's why her hair was so shiny.

"It _is _hair," I said. "I mean, it does grow back."

"Exactly! That's what _I _said." Loki spread his arms out.

"You're a _guy_; you wouldn't care if your hair got hacked off," Sif retorted.

"I would, too; I've spent years getting it to look like this."

"So rats can live in it," Thor said.

"Says the guy who's probably got a bird colony in his beard."

"My beard was prize-winning at the beard contest last year." Thor stroked his bushy red beard proudly.

"Point is," Sif said, overriding their banter, "Loki brought back some other presents from Svartalfheim to try to sweeten up to Odin; the class president, Frey—" she nodded to another blond guy sitting next to Freyja— "and Thor, so he wouldn't get in as much trouble for breaking school rules. But he had to run his big mouth, as usual, that no Svartalves could make finer things, right within earshot of one of P. Odin's Svartalf assistants. The assistant was personally affronted and said his brother could make finer things for P. Odin, Frey, and Thor, and they wagered their heads in the bargain. That's where Mjollnir came from, and it lost Loki the bet. But Odin intervened so Loki wouldn't get his head hacked off, so the Svartalf got to sew up Loki's mouth instead for a week."

"That wasn't fun," Loki grimaced. "Imagine having _your _mouth sewn up for a week with everybody laughing at you, and you can't defend yourself. Frey's magic boar and Odin's magically-reproducing rings were _not _cooler than the folding boat and the staff I had made."

"He's salty because Mjollnir's awesome," Thor said, "though he _did _get the handle too short because he turned into a fly and kept getting in the smith's eye as he worked. Sabotage is low, Loki." He shook his head in mock disappointment. Before Loki could retort, Thor said to me, "Don't waste your time on rotten apples when there are plenty of sweeter ones out there, like Frey—"

"_Nobody _wants to date Frey, not even Gerd," Loki said. A tall, big-boned but pretty blonde sat on Frey's other side, smiling at him; she seemed happy enough to me.

"Gerd's from Jotunheim," Sif said. "Frey found her when he—_accidentally _pushed the wrong button down to Jotunheim. He wanted her so much he gave his magic sword to Skirnir, his wingman, so Skirnir could talk Gerd into going on a date with Frey, because he was too scared to ask her himself. She didn't want to, until she saw how handsome Frey was. Odin gave her an exemption to come here." Frey laughed at something she said; they _did _look sweet together.

"Shallow," Loki said. "Falling for someone's looks."

"Look who's talking, the guy who'll date any goddess to make himself look higher up," Sif snapped. "He tried to ask _me _to go out with him once," she said to me. "I said no." Was that before or after the hair incident?

"Yeah, well, you and your _boyfriend _are both two-timers," Loki retorted sullenly, and Thor lunged at him.

"Don't bring it up again. That's done with."

I stood up and pushed Thor off with a glare; I wasn't about to get in a brawl on the first day.

"What do you know; your _girl _has guts at least," Thor said, sitting back down.

"I'm not anyone's girl," I said, and Loki stared at me open-mouthed. "You can thank me later," I whispered to him.

"Who's that guy with the one hand? Over there," I said, to change the subject.

"That's Týr," Thor said. "The wisdom god."

"He was _so _wise he stuck his hand in a wolf's mouth," Loki said.

"That doesn't sound smart," I said. Wolves were pretty, but I wouldn't dare get that close to one; I had enough dogs growing up to know canine teeth were sharp.

"Do you want to tell this story, or do you want _me _to?" Sif asked Loki, who blanched.

"Look at the time; lunch is almost over." He sped off without a backwards glance. So much for being friends and sharing things.

"Coward. I think it's because you're around," Thor said to me. I had more than a bucket of saltwater cascading into my stomach.

"Remember how I said he'd had so many girlfriends last year?" Sif said. I nodded. What did this have to do with a wolf? "One left him a half-burnt heart, but he, being who he is, ate it."

"Eww." Guys were gross.

"Yeah. That's where Hel, the underworld goddess who lives in the basement; Jormungand, the serpent who lives in the moat around the school; and Fenris Wolf, who's on an undisclosed island, came from. Odin heard from a volva prophetess they would ruin him and cause Ragnarok, so he had them put where they are and had Fenris chained. None of the Æsir could do it, so Tyr volunteered to stick his hand in Fenris's mouth until it was done."

"Oh."

"It really _is _time to go to class," she said. "I've got ceramics next. What about you?"

"Same," I said.

"We can go together," she smiled, linking her arm in mine, and I smiled back. I'd found a friend.

"I'm off to wrestling, so see you later," Thor said, giving Sif a kiss before he headed out.

There were some interesting classes and people here for sure. But what to do about Loki—part of me wanted to be his friend; he'd been nice to me. But the other part of me was worried; he'd done a lot of not-so-stellar things and sounded like a player besides. _And _he'd run off rather than admit it. I'd have to confront him about it later. With that in mind, things seemed a little brighter.

In ceramics, the teacher immediately gave us a project to work on, creating a model of something we liked. "That's too hard," Sif said, both of us at the same table. "I'm not much use at ceramics; I just ended up here because I needed an elective."

I tapped my pencil against the edge of the desk, the sheet of paper the teacher had handed out for ideas still blank. "It's not that I can't do ceramics; it's just that I don't like coming up with designs." Should I do one of our dogs or horses? But an animal might be hard. Or one of the flowers from our garden.

At the table in front of us was Freyja, her long blonde hair swept up and her pink tulle dress edge with lace, with a rickrack apron overtop; she was already working on something that looked like her amber necklace. She was brave, working in clay and dressed so nicely.

"She's in a lot of my classes," I said. "It seems like she's top at everything."

"Yeah. She's an earth goddess, so that makes sense," Sif said. "There's talk she'll be valedictorian of our class." Her smile dropped. "You're a junior, aren't you? You still have a year to go."

"Who will I hang out with when you're gone?" I asked. It was only the first day, and it had already felt like I'd lost her.

"You have a year to meet people." She chewed at the end of her pencil.

"I've never had much luck at meeting people." I'd always tended to end up alone at my old school.

"Really? It seems like they all come to you."

"I hadn't thought about that." Maybe getting tripped wasn't such rotten luck after all.

"Maybe I'll do a wheat field," Sif decided. "We always had a lot of those growing up."

"You grew up on a farm?" I asked. "Me, too."

"Really? That's cool. What kind of farm?"

"Not a very big one. Just a couple of horses and herding dogs, and some barley, wheat, that kind of thing."

"I wish we had animals, but it isn't a ranch, sadly."

"You have to get up really early for them. My mom always told me she didn't want me to be afraid to get out and do things."

"Sounds like you have a cool mom."

"Yeah, she is." I had never really thought about it before.

The bell rang, and I hadn't come up with a single sketch. As we left the classroom, still talking, the teacher said, "I expect your designs by tomorrow so you can start working."

"Oh, no," I muttered.

"It'll be okay; you'll think of something," Sif said.

"Sorry," I said, as I bumped into someone.

It was Freyja; she gave me a bit of a chilly look. So much for maybe being friends. "Excuse me," I said, more politely, and we started off down the hall to our separate classes.

History was next. And who should be in the back corner of the room but Loki, his head propped against the chalkboard and idly scribbling something in a notebook.

"Hey, Sigyn." He looked up and smiled at me, which made my stomach do a flop, waving me over. As I slid into the desk beside me, the other students glanced over at me and turned away, whispering. Their message was clear: stick with him, and none of them would be your friend. Did their dislike of him have to do with what Sif had said, about the animals, or something else? It unfortunately wasn't the most private place to ask him, so I held that back for later.

"Hey," I smiled, a little too brightly. Darn it, I just couldn't resist.

"You survived so far?" he asked, his eyes sparkling.

"Oh, you're so funny." I gave him a shove, which made him grin even more.

The teacher, who looked like he'd walked out of a medieval painting done by a drunk, angry artist, closed the door and immediately began to drone on while a few kids scribbled notes, including the blond guy who tripped me earlier, but most people snapped into a glassy-eyed stupor.

"He's a Midgardian alum," Loki whispered to me, "but Odin likes him 'cause he's compiling some stories and poems about us. I'll have to set his record straight. His name's Snorri; I don't even have to tell you what _his _nickname is."

I giggled; Snorri's eyes flashed in our direction. I ducked my head in my notebook. Even though I tried to take notes on his lecture, about how the school came to be—something to do with a boulder and the first Jotun, Ymir, and a flood after he'd gotten killed by Odin and his brothers—my mind wandered. Loki didn't even try to pay attention, instead pulling a straw from lunch out of his coat pocket and wadding part of the wrapper in it; the spitball bounced off Snorri's shirt, making him jump, and the other students laughed as his eyes scanned for the suspect. Loki stuffed the straw away and innocently pretended to be writing. With a look of annoyance, Snorri went back to lecturing.

Trying to crane sideways to catch a glimpse of what Loki had been scribbling earlier, all I could make out was an inked and shaded sketch of a wolf and the Sun before he pulled it away. Was the wolf Fenris? And why didn't he want anyone to see it?

At long last, the bell rang, and Snorri gathered up his notes, the first out the door. Loki loitered about until everyone else left, pretending to retie his boot, and I stayed behind, too, so I could corner him. There were too many questions and not enough answers about this guy. Before I could get the words out, he began rifling through the teacher's desk drawers.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"His manuscript—Here it is." Pulling out a thick stack of paper—Snorri must be old-school—he skimmed through it with a deepening frown, the first time he'd actually frowned. "I don't know where he got his sources from, but apparently I am—" he cleared his throat— "'beautiful, comely, and evil in intent.' I'll take the first two, the last one, not so much."

The manuscript was spot-on about his looks, but _evil_. That set off a few alarm bells.

"I'm surprised you're in here, Sigyn; he must have some foresight."

"I _am_?" Forgetting about the "evil" bit, I hurried over to read what Snorri had said about me.

"He just mentioned your name a couple times, is all; it's really nothing." Wadding up the manuscript, he shot it into the trashcan and started for the door. "That'll fix him; the trash should come soon. It's almost the end of the day."

Torn between unrumpling the manuscript to read what it said about me that he didn't want me to see and following him, I started after him. I could always come back and dig it out of the trash later.

"Where are you going?" I asked, catching up with him.

"To the stables."

"Do you have a horse here?"

"He's not technically _my _horse, but—"

We exited the main building and crossed over a footbridge to the stables, which smelled comfortingly of hay and warm horses. "That's Sleipnir," he said, nickering to a grey spotted horse with _eight _legs. The horse came up to his stall door and rubbed against Loki's shoulder, and Loki stroked his velvet nose with a soft smile.

"He's a beautiful horse," I breathed. For some reason around horses, I could never talk loudly.

"He's mine." He patted Sleipnir's neck.

"You just said—"

He scowled. "I know; he's _technically _Odin's horse, but—I'll tell you a story. The school wasn't walled when I first came here, but some of the Jotun graduates kept coming to attack it, something to do with Odin killing the founder of their school Ymir or something like that, and Odin decided to wall it for safety. A strange contractor came with his horse—seriously, who uses a horse for construction?—to make an offer to wall it by the start of summer vacation, as long as he got paid. Odin didn't ask what he wanted for payment, probably assuming it'd be money, and let him have the job. The contractor and his horse worked all day while we were at school, and the next morning when we came back to school.

"Odin went to him one day to thank him for his progress and to ask how much he wanted paid. The guy said, 'Not much. Just the Sun, Moon, and Freyja.' That _pissed _Odin off. He wasn't about to let the Jotun—of course it was a Jotun—have the Sun, Moon, or Freyja, pity. So he called a meeting with his execs and the student council to decide what to do about it. No one had any ideas, so I—I was secretary for the first-year class, a worthless job—suggested he tell the contractor he wouldn't get paid if he didn't finish before the start of summer vacation. Odin was so desperate, he agreed.

"Summer vacation was about to start, and the wall was almost done. The evening before his horse put the last stone on the gate, I spirited the horse away disguised as a mare. _That's _where Sleipnir came from. Everybody was happy the guy couldn't finish on time and they got to keep the wall as well as the Sun, Moon, and Freyja; Freyja was especially happy. But Odin was pissed at me for some reason, so he confiscated Sleipnir and wouldn't let me have any more student council positions. Big loss. Those are a sham, anyway."

"Wow." I didn't even know what to say to that. Recovering myself, I added, "I thought you didn't like Odin because of what he did to Hel, Jormungand, and Fenris." There, I said it.

His eyes flashed. "Sif told you, didn't she?"

"She said Odin was afraid they'd start Ragnarok." I might've crossed the line, but I needed to know.

"Odin's been consulting too many Volvas; he's becoming apocalypse-obsessed. Ever since his kid Baldr, the guy who tripped you, began having dreams about his death. Poor guy. Odin went on sabbatical after that and came back with one eye missing and rope marks around his neck. We were kind-of afraid to ask him about that. Only Frigg really knows, but I'll get it from her sooner or later."

"He sounds—intense." Anybody who would hang themselves must really want something.

"No kidding."

Sleipnir nudged his head against my shirt pocket. "Sorry, boy." I laughed, stroking his mane. "I haven't got any treats."

"Here are some sugar cubes." Loki went to the tack room and returned with some sugar; he gave one to me. Sleipnir's whiskers tickled my palm as he munched the sugar. Just like my horses. Loki caught my eye, smiling, and I ducked my head.

"I can't figure you out," I told him.

"Oh?" He lifted an eyebrow.

"I can't figure out if you're one of the nice guys or not."

"Let me know when you decide." He sounded indifferent, but I crossed my hands behind my back I hadn't said something I shouldn't have.

For a minute, we just stood side by side, our hands next to each other on the stall door, and the answer didn't matter much.

#

"How was your first day at school?" Mom asked, already making omelets for dinner as I stepped inside the back door and set down my shoulder bag. For once, she didn't tell me to move it.

"Hey there," I crooned to my mutt-dog Wolf, patting her back as her tail thumped against my leg. "It was—interesting," I said, pulling out almonds from the pantry as a snack. Wolf sat back on her haunches and begged until I tossed her a few. "I had some cool classes, like horticulture and ceramics. The people there seem really intense."

"How so?" she asked. Her brown hair was tied back and her scrub sleeves rolled up from her nursing job. The farm was more for ourselves than for a profit, though we did make some from it.

"The principal went on an extreme wisdom quest, and there's a guy named Thor who's _really _into sports. Some of the girls are top-notch at magic, like Freyja and Sif. There's another guy there who's—" I flushed. If I said everything I'd learned about Loki, they'd forbid me to ever talk to him again. "—a bit of a prankster," I finished lousily.

She nodded, not noticing. "There's one in every class; don't let him get to you."

"I won't." I turned a little redder. It was too late for that.

"Sounds like you're settling in and making friends; that's nice to hear."

My two little brothers, still in grade school, dropped their homework from the living room and ran into the kitchen. "Is dinner ready yet?" Inger, the littler one, asked.

"In a minute, dear," Mom said.

The older one, Kerr, grinned at how red I'd gone. "Sigyn's got a crush!" he crowed.

"Do not," I retorted, hacking at the onion on the cutting board as a cover-up.

"Sigyn's in _love_," he crowed again, and Inger, who always followed him, joined the chorus.

The unfortunate thing was, they knew me too much. I was _not _going to be that silly girl who fell head over heels for the prankster just because he was cute, though he _was _cute. No, stop it. "What about that one girl in kindergarten, Inger, when you came home and said you were going to marry her? Or the one time, Kerr, a girl in _your _class dared you to kiss her?"

"Blech." They stuck their tongues out at me, and I smiled. A big sister had to have her own arsenal.

"Sigyn, you're going to murder that poor onion," Mom said.

"Sorry; I got carried away." It was in sad shreds on the counter.

"It's okay for omelets, but please pay attention to what you're doing." She took the onion and added it to the pan. I needed to pay more attention to a lot of things.

"What's this about crushes?" Dad came in, his blue eyes bleary and his red hair flattened on one side from taking a nap on the sofa. "You don't have a boyfriend, do you, Sigyn?"

I gave the boys the stink eye. "No, I don't," I said.

"You don't need one; you're too young."

I suppressed a sigh. I had just turned seventeen and was still a little baby to him. "The same goes for Kerr and Inger." I couldn't resist. "Don't get a boyfriend _or _a girlfriend."

"Gross," Inger said.

"I'm not gay," Kerr added, making a face as he ran from the room, Inger after him.

I smiled down at the mushrooms on the cutting board; it was worth it for that.

"Sigyn, don't be too hard on them," Mom said.

"They're harder on _me_," I said. They were the ones always teasing me; I couldn't let them get away with whatever they wanted because they were younger.

"They're just boys," Dad said, digging into the almonds.

He didn't say I was just a girl when I was little and used to run around outside without a shirt or when I tackled one of the neighborhood boys for threatening me with a wasp's nest he'd found. He'd made me royally apologize. "They're half-grown already, and not everyone will think they're as amusing as you do." They could end up getting their mouths sewn up like Loki or something even more severe...

"You're not their mother," he said. Did he really think I acted like I was?

"I know. I just don't want anything to happen to them."

"There's nothing the matter with that," Mom said.

"Maybe I should've sent you to that school earlier," Dad said. "You're starting to sound more grown-up."

My mouth quirked. At least he'd said that. I started to hug him, but he reached for the ketchup bottle on the counter with such a sly look that I seized it and squirted some on his nose. We both laughed. Where the family gets its antics from.

Mother just smiled and shook her head a little. "Boys, it's time to eat." They reached the table faster than she could bring the plates to it; they loved to eat almost as much as Thor. Wolf took up her post under the table as the rest of us came in. My family could be annoying sometimes, but I wouldn't trade any of them in. Yet.

**Chapter Two**

We had to cross the rainbow Bilrost bridge to get to school, with two ravens cawing at us from the roof of the school. Heimdall stood guard at the front entrance, his blond hair under his cap and his magic cell phone to alert Odin and his execs in case of emergencies at his belt. Usually he didn't say anything, just nodded, as we walked through the doors, though he gave a sour look to Loki, who just smiled disarmingly as ever.

"What'd you do to him?" I asked, catching up to him in the front doorway. "Put vinegar in his coffee?"

"Nah. He just has it out for me. Though I _did _put vinegar in his coffee once." He laughed. "Actually, Heimdall really wants to be principal, but Odin will never kick the bucket so he can be, so he's trying to settle for being a Vanir like Frey and Freyja. That hasn't worked for him either." He brushed a curl behind that had come out of my ponytail behind my ear. "You have a hair loose—"

I blushed. "Thanks."

I was going to be that silly girl who fell head over heels for the prankster because he was cute.

After stopping at the lockers, we walked together again as far as the greenhouse before he turned to go. Freyja brushed past us inside and shut the door in front of me, but someone else caught it and held it open. "Thank you—" I started. "Oh, hi, Idun."

She smiled, dressed in gold like her apples. "Hi." But as soon as she saw Loki, who just waved as he walked down the hall, her smile slipped, and she shut the door behind us. What was _that _about?

When I gave her a puzzled look, she said in a low voice as she slid in front of her tray, "You're new here, so you probably haven't heard everything. Every year, we have a camping trip as a school, and the students from the other floors get to come along. Odin found some meat he wanted to cook, and Loki was in charge of cooking that night. Odin got on him for not having it ready fast enough and thought it was another prank, but Loki seemed genuinely put-out about the meat not being able to cook. Then he got carried off by one of the Jotuns, Thiazzi, disguised as an eagle; he dropped Loki into the middle of a lake until he agreed to do what he told him.

"I was minding my own business and tending my apple trees, which is where these apples come from, when a falcon picked me up and carried me to the Jotun students' camp. I wasn't happy that Loki, for it was him, brought me to be Thiazzi's girlfriend. Thiazzi wasn't nice or attractive at all." She shuddered. "I was stranded at the camp, wondering what the Æsir kids would do without the apples to keep them young, when the falcon came and took me back, probably because the Æsir were angry at him. Thiazzi followed as an eagle, but he got swallowed by a big bonfire the Æsir students cooked up for him. Loki seemed to know about it and feinted another way to bring me back and trick Thiazzi."

I was so focused on her story I accidentally clipped my grass too close. "That's awful—for Thiazzi, that is. And for you." Kidnappings and people getting roasted in bonfires—that was one camp I'd have to beg off on.

"That wasn't all. Thiazzi's cousin, Skadi, one of the Jotuns' camp counselors, came to the Æsir camp demanding payment for Thiazzi's death by becoming one of the Æsir's girlfriend. The gods thought it would be funny to make her choose by their feet, so they put a cloud around themselves. She picked the cleanest feet, thinking they were pretty and would be Baldr's, but they turned out to be another of the camp counselor's, Frey and Freyja's dad, Njord. She was so mad, though all the gods were laughing at her, and said she wouldn't agree to it unless they could get her to laugh, too. None of them could, except Loki. He tied himself to one of the camp goats and played tug-of-war until he fell over, and she had to laugh at how ridiculous it was. She and Njord are still together, but no telling how long it'll last. They can't seem to agree where to live."

"At least it ended okay," I said. Loki seemed to have no end of pranks up his sleeve.

"It's okay; nobody liked Thiazzi much."

A shriek interrupted her. Freyja shot up, her hand at her throat. "My necklace! Someone took my necklace. It had to have been that Loki; he was just in the hall—"

"What's so special about her necklace?" I whispered to Idun.

"The Brising necklace." She rolled her eyes a little. "She asked the Svartalves to make it for her, but they wouldn't unless she—uh—had a sleepover with them." Seriously, we _were _in high school. "Her boyfriend, Odr, was none too happy about it and disappeared. She went _everywhere _searching for him, but they haven't found him yet. It's very sad, really."

"Oh." That _wasn't _a story with an okay ending; maybe that's why she acted so chilly. If her boyfriend couldn't be found, at least I could help her get her necklace back.

Class was basically over with Freyja bursting out of the hall in search of her necklace, and everyone else followed because it was more exciting than trimming plants. "I'll call Heimdall on him," she fumed. "He won't let him out of the building with it."

Given the sour look Heimdall had given Loki, that would end in chaos. "Freyja," I said, touching her on the arm.

She jerked around and glared at me. "You're Loki's girlfriend, aren't you?"

I turned hot. It was only the second day, and people already thought that; I _hadn't _been very subtle. I started to correct her, but it didn't seem worth the effort. "Don't call Heimdall, please. I can find Loki, if you want, and talk him into giving your necklace back."

"If anyone could talk sense into him," she said doubtfully, but she nodded.

"And I—" I scuffed my lowtops on the floor. "I'm sorry about your boyfriend."

"Thank you." There was a tight note in her voice, and she dashed away an amber-colored tear.

I didn't know what else to do, so I said, "I'll come back" and ran off to find him. If I were a shapeshifter wanting to hide, where would I go?

The stables. They had lots of places to hide so he wouldn't be found. When I walked in, two _gigantic _grey cats in one of the stalls hissed at me, and I skirted away, my heart jumping. Had they been there yesterday, and I just somehow missed them? But then, how could anyone miss cats the size of Sabertooth tigers?

Sleipnir knickered to me, rolling his eyes at the cats. "That's how I feel, too, boy," I said, patting his neck. "Do you know where Loki is? I need to find him." He arced his head to the corner of the stall, but there was no one there.

Something rustled in the hay, and there was a flash of a long tail. "Loki. I know you're there. Where's Freyja's necklace?"

"What necklace?" Where there had been a mouse a second ago, there he was.

"You know what I'm talking about. She was really upset it was gone."

"I bet she was, the floozy."

"That's not very nice." No matter how Idun said Freyja had gotten it, that necklace was really important to her. "She threatened to call Heimdall."

That did it. "He wouldn't hesitate to have an excuse for that; he never trusted me." He reached into the straw, where the necklace glinted, and I snatched it away.

"You're not getting that back," I said, stepping out of reach.

"So you know," he said, as I snapped the stall door behind me and started back towards the classrooms, "I didn't take it just 'cause. Odin told me to."

"Sure he did." I rolled my eyes. A likely excuse.

"No, really, he did." His eyes seemed sincere.

"What would _Odin _want with a necklace?"

He shrugged. "He said something about starting a fight in Midgard so he could get some more people in Valholl, but I wasn't really paying much attention."

"Oh. Well. Either way, it isn't nice to steal people's stuff, no matter if it was you or Odin." He didn't answer, just watched as I patted Sleipnir, whispering, "Thanks, boy," and hurried out of the stable, circumventing the hissing cats.

"Freyja's," he said, now at the stall door. "They're vicious and menacing and don't like anyone but her and sometimes Frey. They pull her car to school."

My jaw dropped. "Seriously?" A car pulled by _cats_?

"Yeah. Don't we all wish we had cat-powered cars?" He rolled his eyes, and I giggled in spite of myself. It was hard to stay mad at him.

He looked after me with his chin resting on the stall door and a half-smile that sent static up my arms until I shut the door to the stables. Snap out of it.

To find Freyja. "I got your necklace," I told her, locating her at her locker.

"Oh. Oh. Thanks." She took it and went back to sorting through her books.

That wasn't as much of a reaction as I'd hoped, but at least she'd gotten it back.

Sif seemed glad to see me when it was time for ceramics, and that was enough. "Have you come up with an idea?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said, as I tied on an apron. Maybe I'd do a horse after all. We grabbed slabs of clay from the bins and started working. A little at a time, the horse took shape, a head and a body; I absently sang under my breath as I worked, like when I was at the barn. "You can really sing," Sif said, bits of clay sprinkled across her face as she worked on rolling the stacks of wheat.

"Not really." I flushed.

"Yeah, you can. You should join the chorus. They start this Thursday."

"I don't know. I've never performed for anybody before." The thought gives me jitters.

"I used to do dance, and I didn't like recitals that much, but it was still fun. You have to pretend like the people aren't there or they forgot to wear clothes."

I snorted. "You said 'used to.' Don't you anymore?"

She shrugged. "Too busy, and it got expensive."  
"You should do dance team." They'd had fliers up advertising tryouts.

"No," she said, with a sidelong glance at Freyja. "Everyone knows everyone on that team already. She's captain." She was everywhere.

"I dare you. I'll do choir if you'll do dance." The jitters were already up in my stomach.

"All right."  
The day went faster than I expected, and, all too soon, it was time for Snorri the Snorer's class. He was put-out about his manuscript being stolen and went up and down the rows asking if anyone had seen it; I had a hard time making eye contact with him but couldn't bring myself to say anything. When he stopped in front of Loki, he just looked back at him blankly. "You don't know where my manuscript went, do you?" he asked pointedly.

"No, sir."

Snorri kept staring at him as if waiting for him to fess up. Here was my chance to find out what was in the manuscript. "You must've worked hard on it," I said.

"Indeed, I did," Snorri said indignantly.

Loki gave me a sideways look, half-puzzled and half-relieved I'd distracted the Snorer. I plowed on. "What kind of research did you do for it? What kind of poems are in it?"

Snorri's face lit up that someone had taken a sliver of interest in his stuff. Everyone else groaned. "Nice, going, Freckle-face," Baldr muttered.

I tried to ignore him, but Loki shot him a venomous glare. Nice to know he'd at least beat someone up for me.

Snorri started droning on about skaldic poetry, which almost put me to sleep, but I struggled to pay attention. "Traditional Norse poetry uses periphrases called kennings, like 'destroyer of the gods,'" he said, with a pointed look at Loki, who just stared him down. "There's actually a story about that. At Ragnarok, the fall of the deities, the cock will crow throughout the Nine Worlds, and the hound Garm will bark three times for those in Svartalfheim, Muspelheim, and Jotunheim, for Fenris breaking his chains, for the world's destruction. The Jotuns will storm Asgard, led by the—the _destroyer_, as Jormungand will flood the world and devour Thor, and Fenris will devour Odin—" The energy in the room palpably decreased, and I was the only one left nodding at him as he went on. "The destroyer of the gods and Heimdall will slay each other, and Týr will die at Garm's jaws. Yggdrasil High will fall, and the Sun and Moon will be eaten by wolves. A new Sun and Moon will be born, and the younger Æsir will inherit the new world, and Baldr and Hodr will return from Hel. The last two humans will wake from sleep and renew the earth."

That's about where even I fell asleep. After class, everyone—the teacher included—ran for the door, but the teacher made it there first. "He has it out for me," Loki muttered to me as we left.

"The teachers and students both need to show each other respect," I said, picking my words carefully.

"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "_Evil_, really."

"What he said about Ragnarok wasn't exactly sunshine and flowers."

"Nothing lasts forever, you know. Things will come back. Tough Baldr does, though." He shuddered.

"But at what cost? Everyone we go to school with, all of our friends, will be dead." _He _would be dead.

"Nobody lives forever," he said thoughtfully, chewing at a nail. "Sometimes, you have to go out with the old to get the new; it's not destruction. It's recreation. Besides, it's cooler to go out in style."

I couldn't laugh. Of course, he'd be a hard sale. "Aren't you scared?" I asked. No point being subtle.

"Not if I get to take down Heimdall." He touched my cheek, and I jumped, redder than my shirt. "Hey, don't worry. Everything will turn out like it should."

Would it? My heart sputtered back into rhythm. I was a fool to let him have such an outsized influence for how little I'd known him, that he was who I was worried about most. I ducked my head against his shoulder, which smelled like horses. "I wish that were true."

He twisted my hair around his finger. "It will be."

**Chapter Three**

"Break a leg," Thor said, thumping me on the back as I went to the choir room.

I was too winded to think about how I was going to the gallows.

"You'll do amazing," Sif said.

"You, too." The dance team tryouts were today, too.

"Don't worry about it." Loki put his hand on my shoulder. "No one deserves it more than you."

"Thanks." It was always nice to have a personal cheer team. Ducking into the room, I lined up with the others along the wall by the piano.

"You're here, too," Idun said, next to me.

"Yeah." I smiled at her. It was nice to have someone familiar close by.

The teacher took her place at the piano and wasted no time calling people up to practice; a lot of people to got in, but several didn't. My heart sputtered quicker by the time the line got smaller and smaller. Too soon it was my turn. Idun, who'd gotten in, gave me a thumbs up. Forcing my feet to move to the piano and not to the door, I picked up the sheet music from the piano and flipped through it, taking a deep breath. The piano sounded the first note, and I had no time to think, only to try to keep up with the song. The teacher only nodded when I finished. "Alto." I blew out a breath. I got in! Joining Idun in the alto section, I gave her a low five, and she all but squealed, she was so excited.

When we let out, there was a tug at my hair, and I whipped around to find Loki, grinning and twirling my hair tie. "Give it back, thief." I lunged for it, but he held it higher. Tackling him against the wall, I snatched it back.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" But I couldn't help smiling. He'd stayed after for me.

"You look pretty with your hair down; you should wear it down more."

Had he really just called me pretty? A warm built up inside me and spilled over. Fumbling with my hair, I said, "It's a rat's nest with it down; I can never get a comb through it, let alone get it to stay in place."

"It's like fire." He touched a stray strand of it. "You don't take compliments well."

"People don't usually say things like that to me." I stopped at the sideways smile on his face. "Flatterer." With a sly grin of my own, I pushed him into the wall.

"Hardly." Tickling me under the arm, he had me laughing helplessly.

"Stop! Stop!" I gasped. People were starting to stare.

He just grinned wickedly.

"That wasn't nice." I tickle-attacked him back 'til we were both breathless with laughter.

"You're being mean," he accused, but he couldn't stop grinning.

"You deserved it." Finally sobering enough to talk, I said, "We should go check on Sif."

"Yeah." Trying to keep a straight face but failing, he walked with me to the gym. Our hands brushed against each other's, raising sparks of electricity. I pulled mine away, rubbing at it. Had he noticed or not?

"Hey, you made it." Thor threw his arms around both of us as soon as we walked into the gym, which was the first time I had been in there. It was spacious, every sound echoing off the polished walls and red floor (maybe it was painted that color to hide the blood). The javelins, swords, and spears had been pushed aside for the tryouts, which looked like they were mostly over.

"Get off me," Loki said.

"Sorry. Wouldn't want to get between you and your beloved." Thor winked. Loki and I caught each other's glance and rolled our eyes.

"How'd you do?" Thor asked me.  
"I got in."

"Look at you, killing it." He gave me a fist bump. I guess I was officially in the Thor club now.

Sif came up to us, wiping the sweat off her forehead and smiling. "Did you make it?" I asked, even though her smile said it all.

"Yeah." She hugged me, both of us jumping up and down.

"Congrats!" I squealed.

"You, too," she gushed. "I can't believe it."

"Girls, man," Thor said to Loki. "I don't get them, do you?"

Loki just shrugged.

Their reaction had us giggling even harder.

#

The first month passed even quicker than I expected, and I survived the first round of tests and choir rehearsals with my grades mostly still in-tact. One of those days, as we were heading into school, Thor gave a yell. "What is it?" Sif asked, her hand jumping to his back. "Does your leg still hurt?" He'd unfortunately had an accident in gym, something that had involved tripping over a sword someone had left out and flying into the bleachers...Loki had tried not to laugh too hard about it (only because Thor gave him the stink eye).

"No," Thor said, pointing. "It's that damned serpent; he's giving me a death glare." We peered over the edge of the bridge as something splashed into the moat.

"You must've imagined it," Sif said. "I didn't see anything."

"It was _there_," he insisted. "That thing enjoys taunting me because it knows it'll get to kill me. It even haunts my nightmares."

"Sounds like you need to see a shrink," Loki said, his arm around my shoulder.

"You fiend," Thor said. "This thing is _your _fault, and you act like it's _my _problem. Just when I thought you might have been developing some level of sympathy."

"He has to eat, too; nobody's going to be too sad when that's you instead of a fish."

My mouth dropped open. "Loki!"

Thor yelled and seized Loki by the throat, knocking him into the concrete school wall as his face turned bluer and bluer. "I'll fix you; once I'm through with you, nobody will have to listen to your snide comments again."

Sif and I exchanged alarmed looks. We all wanted to strangle him sometimes, but, if Thor succeeded, he'd get more than an expulsion, even with his dad as principal.

"Stop it!" I rammed into Thor with all the force I could muster; he tripped to the side, and I shoved him down. He stared up at me with such shock he didn't even try to get up, and Loki's eyes were almost the size of dinner plates. I'd just knocked down Thor.

"Why can't you just be nice to each other for once, instead of trying to kill each other?" I snapped.

Neither of them answered, and it didn't seem as though either of them would ever move again.

"Sigyn," Sif said, nodding her head towards a shadow coming up behind us. "Look out."

"The three of you, come with me," Heimdall said, speaking for the first time I'd ever heard. His voice was softer and calmer than I'd imagined it, but still tight with anger. We'd pissed off the wrong person now. "I'll escort you to the principal's."

My parents would _not _be happy about this. I followed Heimdall, head down, but Loki and Thor still looked defiant. "I'll catch that Jormungand," Thor muttered, "if it's the last thing I do."

"You will not," Loki hissed, trying to sidestep out of reach, but Heimdall snagged his collar and dragged him all the way down the hall to the principal's office, his other hand on Thor's beefy shoulder. Sif trailed behind. Our classmates stopped digging through their lockers long enough stare, and then they started to whisper. I tried to ignore them. This was humiliating.

Heimdall deposited the three of us in the vice-principal's office, Sif staying at the door, while he went to go get Odin. "You can't do this," Thor said. "I'm Odin's son."

Heimdall ignored him.  
"You and your fat mouth," Thor grumbled at Loki as he slumped on a wooden bench. Loki folded him arms and turned away from him to sulk in peace. I sat between them, waiting for the volcano to erupt. The day hadn't even _started _yet, and we were in the principal's office.

"It sounds to me you took the bait when you shouldn't have, Thor," Frigg said, lowering her glasses as she looked up from the papers at her desk, "and you shouldn't have hooked his temper, Loki." Loki looked ready to protest. "You're new here, aren't you, dear?" she said to me. "Perhaps it would be wise if you joined a club or something and found other friends."

She thought my friends were being a negative influence. I bit my tongue; sometimes it was just as well to say nothing.

"All this talk of baiting _really _makes me want to go fishing," Thor muttered. Loki cast him a dirty look, but another argument was averted with Odin's deep, resonant voice saying, "Thank you, Heimdall. You may come in." My heart thudding like we were really going to the gallows now, I followed the guys into the principal's office as Heimdall left it. There were bookshelves along the dark-paneled room with titles like _Beyond the Runes _and _Uncover Seidr_. Maybe _that's _what his wisdom quest had been about. Odin himself sat at his matching dark-paneled desk, two ravens perched on his chair, his hands folded and an eyepatch over one eye; his other grey eye watched us. His long, grey hair and beard and grey suit lent him an extra gravitas. I _shouldn't_ have pushed Thor.

"Heimdall told me an interesting story," Odin said. "You may explain yourselves to see if your version corroborates." That was all?  
"Dad," Thor said, "you used to tell me stories about when you grew up; you know what it's like. Jormungand was giving me a death glare as we came into school, and this one—" he jabbed his finger at Loki— "said something snarky about how nobody would be sad when Jormungand eats me."

"Did he, now?"

"I don't remember," Loki said silkily, "but your son did try to strangle me." He pulled back his collar, showing off the Thor fingermarks on his throat.

"And Sigyn, did you push Thor?"

"Only because he was trying to kill Loki," I said.

One of the ravens cawed something to him. "I see, Muinin," Odin nodded. Muinin. _Memory_. Hadn't these been the ravens who perched on top of the school sometimes?

"I'll speak to each of you individually, Thor first." Loki and I waited outside the door at the keyhole to listen in.

"It's not that you were fighting," Odin began. "I don't care about that. It's that I still have need of him, so you can't kill him. He's not yours to kill."

"He says things just to make me mad; I know he does," Thor said. "He takes advantage of me because he knows he's smarter than me. I work hard for you, Dad, I really do, but I'll only ever be a straight C student."

"He really is," Loki muttered. I didn't answer.

"I _know _you've worked hard, and academics doesn't come first to you. Perhaps helping tutor students after school would be of use to you."  
"Dad—"  
"Loki next."

Thor knocked past us with a thunderous look on his face as Loki sloped into the office. "He wants me to go to remedial school," Thor groaned to me. "He thinks I'm an idiot. Doesn't he remember there's practice after school?"  
I held a finger to my lips. "I'm trying to listen."

"You _do _remember on what grounds I let you come here, don't you? Even though your father went to Jotunheim," Odin began. Loki's dad was a Jotun?

"My mother went here," Loki answered quietly.

"I suspect your memory is not as poor as you pretend it is; I remember we both swore not to take a drink unless the other was offered one, also. Spending time helping Heimdall might help you remember."

Something crashed as Loki strode out of the office. "That—" he called him something unrepeatable.

"Watch yourself," I whispered, jabbing my finger towards the door.

"He is. He did that on purpose because he _knows _I hate Heimdall."  
"I'll trade with you," Thor offered.

"It doesn't work that way," Loki scowled.

"Sigyn."

Trying to stand more confidently than I felt, I walked into the office and almost crunched on glass.

"I'm afraid my mead tankard is no more," Odin said. "I've been meaning to talk to you since you were first accepted here and haven't had the chance. Snorri was telling me how his manuscript had been stolen, but you'd been interested in some of the research he'd done for it. He didn't want to upset you by telling you in front of the class but asked me to tell you in private." Where was this going? "It must pass that my son Baldr will be no more—" Odin's face closed— "and our world will end. As for Loki, he'll be chained in a cave with a snake until Ragnarok comes. Both Snorri and I have foreseen that you will stay in the cave with him."

"Me?" I hardly knew him, and here Odin was, telling me I'd give up college or a career to stay in a cave with a snake. It didn't seem real.

"That's what the Volva told me. It's part of why I was interested that you come here. I thought you might like to know in advance, before you got too settled here. And, earlier today, I know you meant well."

Pushing back tears, I walked out of the office with my head held up as much as I could. I wasn't going to cry about it. It was fate, but there was still time to alter it.

"Sigyn." Loki followed after me, tailed by Thor. "Wait up."

"Hey," Sif said, still standing outside the door. "What happened?"

Thor spilled out his indignation over his punishment, Loki talking overtop him, and both complaining about how unfair it was. "Poor boys," Sif said, with mock-sympathy. "Maybe that'll teach you next time."

I pushed past them to the restroom.

"What's up with her?" Sif asked.

"Who knows?" Thor said.

#

"Sigyn, I know you're in there," came Loki's voice as he knocked on the stall door. "I can see your shoes."

"This is a girl's restroom," I said, pushing myself up from where I'd been curled in a ball all morning. My back ached.

"I can be a girl if I want to be. Besides, nobody uses the ones on this side of the school."

I'd chosen this restroom on purpose because it was out of the way.

"I'm coming under." He slid under the stall door. "Urgh. This floor is filthy; it's probably got cooties."

I almost cracked a smile.

"See? You did smile." He sat beside me and pressed his hand against my forehead; I reddened. "You okay? I heard you weren't in class all morning. You got on _me _for skipping class."

"What difference does it make? We already got busted once this morning."

"That's not the Sigyn I know." He put his arm around me and pressed my head against his thin shoulder. I stayed there, his breath and mine rising and falling at almost the same time. "I wanted to say thanks; not everyone has the guts to punch Thor."

"Or the stupidity." I was just lucky he didn't do anything back.

"Nah. We were probably the ones being stupid." What unusual honesty. "I couldn't help hear what Odin said to you."

It wasn't as though we were spying on each other. "What are you going to do to get yourself chained in a cave? I don't want you to have to spend forever chained in a cave anymore than I think _you _do." I was being selfish, of course, but I didn't want him to meet that kind of fate.

"No, it's that _you _don't want to spend forever in a cave."

"You're being unfair." Then I stopped myself. He was right. It wasn't the kind of thing that could make anybody happy.  
"You don't have to, you know," he said.

"_You _don't have to—do whatever it is you're going to do, you know." I glared hard at the floor.

"I do."

"Why?"

He opened and closed his mouth several times without answering. I had him. "Odin knows Ragnarok's not something that can be stopped," he said finally. "That's why he's getting troops ready in Valholl. Things can't stay as they are forever, no matter who you ask. Whether the Sun burns out or is eaten or the Earth is destroyed, the world wasn't made to last forever."

"Choices can change destiny; it's not set in stone. Why couldn't the world burn itself out, instead of someone having to light the fuse?"

"I don't know." Didn't know or wasn't willing to say. "But I just came to tell you, you're missing all the excitement." He was quick to change the subject. "Aegir and Ran, the Jotuns who live at the bottom of the moat, invited everyone to lunch, and we were trying to get a cooking pot big enough to put their specialty drink in. Thor volunteered to get one from Hymir, the cook in Jotunheim, and took three roast bulls from the kitchen to bribe him, but he apparently ate two on the way, so now Hymir's making him fish to earn the pot. If you hurry, you might still get to see some of it."

"You came to find me instead of watching? That's not the Loki I know." I grinned slyly and tugged at his hair.

Laughing, he pulled mine back. We left the—rather stinky—bathroom for the windows nearby; sure enough, Thor and another guy, presumably Hymir, were in a fishing boat in the middle of the moat, a pot almost the size of the boat waiting on the shore. Thor threw his line, baited with a chunk of bull, into the water, which began to froth and rise up, the boat about to capsize as a serpent, large enough to wrap around the school about a hundred times, reared his head out of the water. Waves crashed against the windows. _How _did he even fit in the moat?

"Damn, he's big," I said, having to pick my jaw up from the floor.

"Jormungand," Loki said fondly. "Crazy Thor will never be able to catch him."

But Thor tried to anyway, whipping out his hammer to full size, silver and shimmering with electricity. "He really is mad," Loki said.

Hymir lunged for Thor's fishing line, knocking it from his grasp, and Jormungand sank back under the water, everything immediately calmer. I breathed out a sigh of relief with the waves. No way would I want to meet Jormungand; he'd eat me for breakfast and still be hungry.

"Hymir has sense, at least," Loki said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't go fishing for him."

Thor must've not thought Hymir had sense, shoving the Jotun overboard for him to swim to shore and rowing the boat back to the dock and cooking pot.

There was still time to get lunch and meet Aegir and Ran.

**Chapter Four**

One month bled into two, and there were enough things to keep everyone occupied, with tests, a choral concert coming up, and the guys still on detention (Thor complained royally about how he had to help the freshies figure out long division when the first game of the season, against the Utgard-Jotuns, was coming up, while Heimdall kicked Loki out for stealing his security phone and downloading unwanted pictures on it to try and get Heimdall fired). Sif had dance practice almost every afternoon and part of lunch to prepare for the game, around which there was a lot of trash talk from the Utgard team.

"Sorry I'm late," Sif panted as she plopped her tray, which had almost Thor-sized portions on it, down at our table; her lateness wasn't all that unusual anymore. "They're going to wear me to death, and they don't even break a sweat."

"Don't die," Thor said, rubbing her back. "We need you to cheer us on as we clobber those Jotuns." He pulled a face. "Sucks Dad won't let me off babysitting duty. I haven't had as much time to practice lately, and now I'm gonna drag the team down."

"You'll pull it out; I know you will," Sif said, scarfing down her beef. "The Jotuns are scared of you."

"If all else fails, there's always sabotage," Loki suggested.

"You _would _think of that." I smiled at him.

"That's not very honorable," Thor said, raising his eyebrows at us.

"I'm being serious," Loki said. "We can go to Jotunheim and trip up some of their players. That'll get them to stop trash-talking." Just this morning, a banner proclaiming "We won't be a bore; we won't make you snore; we'll beat Thor," had mysteriously appeared above the school's front entrance.

"Yeah, we could show them," Thor said, a thunderous glint in his eye, probably also remembering the poster. "_And _I've heard they have the tastiest food the other side of Asgard. We could raid the kitchens while we're there."

We all laughed, and Loki rolled his eyes. "Always in it for the food," he muttered.

#

"Maybe this wasn't the smartest idea," Sif said as we snuck to the roped-off elevator at the end of lunch.

"We'll be back before you know it," Thor said, pushing the button down to Jotunheim.

"Hey, you," I told Loki, punching him lightly on the arm, "don't cause too much trouble."

"_I _won't."

I shook my head.

Then the elevator opened, and they jumped on; it swallowed them.

The bell rang for class, and we sprinted to the room. We were onto a different project in ceramics, a ceramic pot, and had gotten our other projects back; I'd added the suggestion of eight legs to the horse and meant to give it to Loki, but I could never seem to come up with the courage or suitable reason to give it to him. So, it still sat on my dresser.

The rest of the day dragged on. Snorri tutted about Loki not showing up for class, and they were still gone at the end of the day. "Where can they be?" Sif asked as we went to check the elevator.

"Think we should go look for them?" I asked.

"Let's wait a few more minutes."

We settled against the wall to wait, but I couldn't focus on my homework. After half an hour, I put my notebook down. "I'm going looking." She grabbed my shirttail, but I pushed the button anyway, and down we went.  
The door opened on the mostly empty halls of Jotunheim, where school had cleared out for the day; it was a usual-looking school, the walls lined with lockers, but the halls were darker, with no windows or much lighting.

"Let's get on with it, before anyone sees us," Sif said, glancing around and shivering.

We went off, wandering the labyrinthine halls and ducking into broom closets when a lagging Jotun left detention or work study to go home. "They could be anywhere," Sif whispered to me. "We've checked a lot of the classrooms, and I don't see anyone passing by who looks familiar."

I paused. If I were them, where would I be? "Let's go check the gym." I ran off with Sif behind me, taking several wrong turns before stumbling upon shouts echoing from the gym. We crept closer, peering in through the gym's door from inside the locker rooms.

Inside the gym, a few Jotuns jeered at Thor and Loki, with the tallest of them gesturing them out. "Go on and leave."

They didn't need to be told twice, fleeing the gym in disgrace; the plan must've done the opposite of what they'd hoped. "Psst," Sif whispered, waving to them, "in here."

"What are you doing down here?" Thor asked, as Sif checked him over to make sure he was okay.

"Looking for you," she said.

I was so glad to see them still intact I threw my arms around Loki before I could stop myself; he staggered back. "Nice to see you, too," he said, patting me awkwardly on the back until I let him go.

Sif and Thor exchanged amused glances. "So, how'd you find us?" Thor asked.

"You first," I told him.

"We went looking for the Utgard team and found them practicing in the gym," Thor said. "We told them we came to settle up for the banner they'd made, and they just laughed. Their captain, Utgarda-Loki, said we had to prove ourselves first and that they were hungry from practice, so we'd start with an eating and drinking contest."

"They set me against some guy called Logi and gave us a pile of meat to see who could eat to the middle first," Loki said. "We both got there at the same time, but the guy ate the bones and everything. Who eats the _bones_?" he asked indignantly. "It'll make you sick." I nodded sympathetically. One of my dogs almost died after swallowing a bone.

"Then they gave me a massive cup to drink out of," Thor said, "and told me to drain it in no more than three gulps. I thought I could do it in one go, but I had to catch my breath, and it looked like I hadn't drunk anything even after the third try. They really laughed at me for that. Worse, they told me to run laps against their old gym teacher. Can you imagine, me against an old woman? And I lost!" He threw up his hands. "This is beyond humiliating."

"We'll get a chance to beat them at the game," I said.

"We'll need more than luck to beat those guys," Thor said. "But I can't let myself suffer another humiliation."

"I got one of their rings, at least; maybe that'll help." Loki flipped a ring into his pocket before peering out of the door of the locker room. "They're gone; let's get out of here."

None of us were sad to leave.  
#

The next day, the day of the game, I started to carry my tray over to the table as usual, where Thor and Loki were already; something they said sent me hiding behind a pole to listen in.

"I can't eat; I'm too nervous thinking about how they'll make us a laughingstock again," Thor said.

"_You _can't eat?" Loki asked. "The end of the world must be at hand."

"I'm serious, Loki," Thor said. "The girls had to see us get humiliated, too."

"They had the guts to come looking for us, at least."

"Yeah." Thor scooted closer. "Sigyn seems to really like you, if she wanted to go all the way to Jotunheim just to go looking for you."

"You think she does?"

"Are you kidding me? She blushes every time you walk in a room, and you've been giving each other moony eyes for two months, longer than you've ever cared about a girl, and you don't think she _likes _you?"

"She's always telling me I'm not very nice, and she doesn't seem to like the whole—Ragnarok thing."

"Who does, but when have you ever cared about that hurting your chances with a girl?"

"She's—she's—I really like her. She's pretty, and she's got guts. She laughs at my jokes, even when they're stupid."

"You're one sad, lovesick puppy." Thor shook his head. "Why don't you ask her out?"

"What if she says no?"

"What if she says yes? Don't be an idiot; ask her out. I dare you."

"You've been waiting to use that line, haven't you?"

"Yep."

My heart was up in my throat. He _did _like me, but he didn't seem to think I really liked him. It wasn't that—it was just I was torn-up about him since he was charming but also destined to kill everyone—and probably always would be. The future didn't look too bright, but I wanted so much to make more of the present. I wanted so much to make a different kind of future.

"Hey." I sat down beside them, and Loki got choked.

Thor thumped him on the back. "Slick," he snorted.

"That was your fault," he said, his eyes still watering.

I pretended not to know what they were talking about.

#

The game night was finally upon us, and the choirs of both Jotunheim and Asgard were to sing the schools' anthems beforehand. Standing facing the packed bleachers, my knees began to turn to water. Clutching at my black skirt, I was completely out-of-character for myself. "We'll do okay," Idun said, touching my hand.

What Sif had said flashed into my head, and I was ready. We'd practiced so many times we sang mostly by rote, but our classmates stood up and cheered when we finished. My insides turned back to normal when we exited the field for the dancers. The first concert was over.

The Jotunheim dance team went first, while I climbed the bleachers to find Loki. Obviously, I was biased, but the Jotunesses couldn't hold a candle to our dance team. Sif and Freyja were on their game; their music selection made the show, and they ended with a well-choreographed double-flip. Our side exploded with cheers, and I shouted, "Go Sif!"

Someone tugged at my hair, and I fell down in a seat beside Loki. "They did amazing, didn't they?" I asked.

"So did you; we'll win for sure. You look amazing, too."

"Thanks," I blushed, and he drew his arm around me, pulling me close. I settled my head against his shoulder and wrapped my arms around him.

The Asgard team unfortunately didn't hold up to the Utgard one in the games. As fast as Thor, Frey, and Baldr could run, Utgarda-Loki and his team outstripped them. In the wrestling, Thor was the first one thrown, and the Jotuns held up their sign and jeered. "He's letting it get to him," I said.

"That, or this ring really is cursed." He pulled out the ring from yesterday and frowned at it.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked, lifting my head from his shoulder.

"From someone called Andvari. He said he cursed the ring, but I thought he was joking. I'll have to find a way to get rid of it." He shoved it back in his pocket.

"Probably not worth keeping a cursed ring," I agreed.

The game ended with both Týr and Thor toppling over in tug-of-war, and the Jotuns ran onto the field screaming, the Asgardians almost in tears. But it was only the first game; there were other chances to beat them.

#

"I can't believe it," Thor groaned, clutching his head as he left the field after the game. "We couldn't even make up for the embarrassment yesterday. I'm never gonna show my face again."

"It's okay," Sif said, still in her glittery makeup and grey dance outfit, as she gave him a sympathy hug. "They were really tough, but that doesn't mean you aren't the top runner in our field."  
"There will be more games for you to clobber them," I said.

"That's true," he said, cheering up some. "You all killed it, though. Beat the pants off those Jotunesses."

Sif and I gave each other a high-five.

"Let's go get ice cream," Sif suggested. "That'll cheer everyone up."

The guys were all for it, so we went off for an after-game pick-me-up.

**Chapter Five**

We were at the edge of the moat, relaxing at the dock after school, not long after the game, to enjoy the crisp autumn weather when a pissed-off looking Svartalf came running up to us. "You!" he shouted, pointing at Thor and Loki. "You killed my brother!"

They exchanged puzzled glances. "Who?" Loki asked.

"Don't play dumb with me! I know you know!"

"I really don't."

"My brother, Odr. You killed him."  
"Odr—" Thor started. "_Oh_. Otter. We thought that was just an otter, and its pelt would make a nice throw rug."

The Svartalf gave a scream and kicked a rock into the water like he'd really like to kick _them_ in there with Jormungand. "What you'd do this time?" Sif asked. If they really had killed someone, _I'd_ volunteer to kick them in there with Jormungand.

"Nothing," Loki said. "We were on the way to Jotunheim and pushed the wrong button and ended up in Svartalfheim. There was an otter by a pond in their courtyard catching fish out of it, and Thor said it'd make a nice rug, so we killed it."

"Seriously? You really should think twice before you kill something," I said. "Where is the pelt?" the Svartalf shouts. "I demand payment for it!"

"We'll get it back to you, we promise," Thor said.

The Svartalf narrowed his eyes at them.

"How'd you like this ring as payment?" Loki offered him the ring from the other day to him. "That should cover part of it."

The Svartalf's eyes turned greedy. Snatching the ring he ran off with it.

"Killed two birds with one stone," Loki said, seeming relieved to be rid of both.

"You said it was cursed," I said. "What was the curse?"

"Something like—death to anyone who owns it. I just hope it doesn't cause any more damage," he adds as an afterthought.

"Who even are you?" I stalked off. Between killing one Svartalf and cursing another...

Sif started after me.

"It's not like we knew," Thor shouted after us.

"I'm gonna report you to animal protective services," I shouted back.

"They wouldn't really do that, would they?" Loki asked Thor. Thor just shrugged.

#

I didn't call them, but I came close. They weren't going to live that one down, though, and it took some doing before they were able to talk to us again.

It wasn't until an ad for a concert by a local rock band showed up at one of the bulletin boards in school—

"Interested?" a shadow came up behind me as I stopped in front of it.

"I was just looking." I turned and poked my finger at him. "You payed him back yet?"

"Yeah." He seemed sincere. "Gave him the rest of Andvari's gold. He seemed snug as a dragon with his hoard of treasure."

I didn't even _want _to know where or how he'd gotten all that gold from this Andvari guy. "Not _quite _the same as him getting his brother back."

"Like I said, he seems happy enough. Besides, brothers can be annoying; I've got two of them, so I know."

"I've got two annoying little brothers, so I feel your pain."

He rolled his eyes as if to say, _tell me about it_. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing; he was too easy to talk to. "Is there any way I could make it up to you? I could take you—" He nodded at the poster.

Sweet of him to try. "Thanks, but no thanks."

The bell rang for class, and we started to hurry in two different directions when the conversation I'd overheard between him and Thor came back to me, about how he was afraid I'd say no, and I'd been so mad I did anyway. I would've said yes under different circumstances. Really, I did miss talking to him, but it might be one more chance than he deserved—unfortunately or not, I believed in second chances. "Wait," I said, grabbing his hand. He dropped mine as if burned. "I'd have to ask my parents."

"Yeah. Okay." The corner of his mouth lifted.

#

"Hey, Mom, Dad," I said, swallowing my nervousness, "can I ask you something?"

They looked up from their books in the living room, their usual pastime after dinner and evening chores.

"What is it, sweetie?" Mom patted the spot on the couch next to her, but I stayed standing in the doorway.

"There's a concert at the park this weekend, and someone asked me to come." I wasn't sure if I wanted them to say no or yes.

"Who's your friend?" Dad asked, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "Boy or girl?"

He was going to start _that _again. "Guy," I said, as casually as possible.

"He isn't your boyfriend, is he?"  
"No." I didn't know _what _he was at this point. "Just a friend who happens to be a guy."

He nodded. "All right. Just make sure to be back here no later than eleven."

"Thank you." The heavy weight eased off my chest.

"Be careful," Mom said. "Make smart choices."

"I will." I had to refrain from rolling my eyes. Parents were _always _parents.

Then I went upstairs to my room, where hopefully my brothers wouldn't barge in (they were _supposed _to be asleep in their room downstairs) and called him. The phone rang so many times I was about to give up when he finally answered. "Hey. Sorry I didn't pick up right away—I thought I lost the phone, but it was under a pile of stuff..."

"You aren't the most organized person, are you?" I shook my head. His locker looked like a pipe bomb had gone off in it.

"Brilliance isn't always organized."

I snorted. "Yeah. Whatever. Well—I—I asked my folks, and they said yes."

"Cool." His voice brightened. "Should I come by your place and pick you up, or should we just meet over there?"

I hesitated. Part of me wanted to put my parents' minds at ease by letting them see him, and the other part was afraid they might freak if they did. "Either way; it makes no difference to me."

"I could come pick you up; it's really no trouble."

"You could come meet the horses," I found myself saying.

In the background, there was a wild scream and a crash, and then a deep voice shouting. "There're two horses here, and they're called my brothers," he said, sounding on edge. "Back from college for the weekend."

"_Fun_." Between the brothers and the dad, it was no wonder he didn't want to invite me over there.

"No really—" Footsteps pounded like horses' hooves down the stairs. "Loki," one of the brothers called. "What are you doing? Talking to another girlfriend? What number are you on now—sixty-nine?"

"Ugh. I have to go, or they'll hijack the phone."

"Don't die."

"If I'm not there Saturday, you'll know what happened." The line clicked off, and I stood there, the phone still in hand. I would never, ever complain about my brothers again.

#

A car horn blared outside. "That's kind-of rude," Mom said, as she put away dishes from dinner.

But I ran to the front window. A shiny black convertible was parked in the front yard; Dad wouldn't be happy about the tire tracks. But, when he waved and grinned at me as he got out of the car, I forgot almost everything else. Opening the back door, I let him in with a smile. "Hey."

He gave his most disarming smile to my family, who looked like they were trying not to stare openmouthed. Oh, great. The dog jumped up and started licking his face until he leaned back, laughing, and scratched under her chin. "Down, girl," I told her. At least someone liked him.

"This is Loki," I introduced him, to try and fill the silence. "My parents and my brothers, Kerr and Inger."

"Pleased to meet you," Loki told them, offering my parents a handshake, though Dad gave him a bit of a dead fish, his eyes narrowed. I should've just met him at the park.

"You, too...Loki, right?" Mom asked, trying to sound a little warmer than Dad looked.

"Yes, ma'am." Really turning on the charm, but, for once, it didn't seem to be working.

"How old are you?" Dad asked him with a frown.

"Eighteen."

Dad's frown deepened.

"What have we here?" Loki pulled a gold coin out from behind Inger's ear, making his eyes widen, and another from Kerr's nose; he gave both of the coins to them. "You might want to wash more," he said with a wink.

"Do it again," Kerr said, clapping his hands.

"How'd you do that?" Inger asked.

Loki just smiled. "It wouldn't be much of a magic trick if I told you, would it?"

"Run along, boys," Dad said. "Give Sigyn and her—_friend _some space."

"_Aww_." They ran out of the room.

"Let's go look at the horses," I suggested, my hand on Loki's back. The room turned chillier with the boys gone.

"Yeah, sure." Probably sensing he was none too wanted, he was quick to step outside.

"Sigyn, wait a minute," Mom said.

"Sorry," I mouthed to him before I shut the door.

"You aren't seeing this boy, are you?" Dad asked.

I tried to keep my voice calm. "No, I'm not." Nothing serious.

"That's probably smart," Mom said. "He looks like a—" Her voice trailed off.

"Like a what?" I asked. They were judging by looks, like they told _me _not to.

"Frankly, he looks like a punk," Dad said.

"Not punk; more Goth, really."

He gave me an "open mouth, insert foot" look. "You know what I meant. It would be preferable if you didn't see him at all."

"You're the one who told me not to judge a book by its cover," I said, a little more hotly than I meant to.

"I don't want you to see him at all," Dad said, more sharply. "He looks like a layabout, and acts like a sleazy salesperson, and he's too old for you."

"That's a bit harsh," Mom said, lowering her voice. "He can probably hear you."

"I _meant _it."

"You can't control what I do at school, and you can't stop me from going tonight."  
"Sigyn!" Mom said.

I slammed the door behind me, drawing in a breath. That was poorly-handled, but they treated me like such a child even though I was almost of age; it was frustrating.

His eyebrow raised.

"Sorry about them," I said, releasing my breath as we walked towards the barn. "I thought maybe they'd seem less concerned if they met you, but it was just the opposite."

"I'm used to people not liking me," he said with a shrug, as if blowing it off, but his eyes said otherwise.

"I guess I won't have you over here again, and I'm not _supposed _to see you at school, either, but I can't help that. I can't keep my eyes closed all day."

He grinned. "I'm just an old, sleezy salespunk," he said in a creaky voice, pretending to lean on a cane. I almost fell over laughing. He knew how to cheer me up.

As we entered the barn, the outside dog ambled up to us long enough to sniff us out and walked off; he wasn't very sociable. The horses were nicer, nickering as we entered the barn. "Hey, Ash and Alder," I said, patting our Icelandic ponies. "This is Loki."

Ash, the braver one, came up to him and thrust his nose in Loki's hand. "Hey, there." He ran his hand along the stallion's side. The shyer one, Alder hung back a little more, so I brought a bag of treats from the tack room and gave some to Loki, who held them out for the horses; that got both to nibble from his hand.

I smiled. "We have time to take them for a short ride, right? They'd like that."

"Why not?"

We got the horses saddled up, and, as I got on Alder—I usually ride Ash, but he seemed friendlier for an unfamiliar rider—something shifted in my pocket. The clay horse statue. "I made something for you," I said, ducking my head as I offered it to him.

"Thank you," he said with a smile that seemed genuine. "That's really cool; you did great with it."

"Thanks." I blushed.

"I'll leave it somewhere it won't break." He put it up on one of the shelves, and then we were off.

I urged Alder into a gallop, giving Loki a sideways grin as he brought Ash into a gallop beside me. I threw back my head and gave a whoop.

"I didn't realize you were such a wild one," he said.

"You don't know much about me then," I teased.

"I'm learning."

Alder's weight shifted under me as she leapt the lower fence, and Ash came after us. I reined my horse in to a walk to cool her down. "I guess that's enough," I said, sweating myself as we brought the horses back to the barn to untack them and brush them down.

"Shame you can't come back to see them," I said.

"They don't need to know." He nodded towards the house.

"Loki." I gave him a playful shove.

With one last pat for the horses, we headed out, statue in tow.

Lots of people were jammed into the park around the outdoor stage, where the band was introducing themselves when we got there and slid into the crowd. It was a perfect autumn night for a concert, not too cool or too hot, the trees crisp with burning colors that dropped on and around the stage. His hand slid into mine, and I didn't pull away.

Soon the concert was underway, the lead singer belting out his throat singing to the rhythm of the drums pounding the beat into the audience. Everyone swayed along and danced. I waved my arms back and forth and bumped him on the hip with a laugh; he bumped me back. He really could dance, getting down to the beat and pulling me with him. My expression skittered from shock to laughing, but he could laugh more. Strict parents and dead otters aside, it was one of the most fun times I'd had.

**Chapter Six**

"How was your date?" Thor asked teasingly at lunch, and Loki gave him a sharp look.

"Well, her old man hates me," he said, his hand on my knee.

"Tough luck. What'd you do to him?"

"_Nothing_. I just walked in the door, and he gave me a death glare."

"He said he was an old man and a punk," I said ruffling my hand through his hair.

"What was that you said?" he asked in a creaky voice, cupping his hand over his ear.

I laughed.

"He's probably just put out because there's someone who doesn't fall for his charms," Sif grinned.

Sobering, I said, "Seriously, I don't know what to do; my dad said not to be friends with him. He seems to think he's a negative influence or something."

"Who, me?" Loki asked, with an innocent expression.

"There _was _that time when we were little, and you chased me around with a butcher's knife," Thor said. "Homicidal at three years old."

"Loki!" I cried.

"Only because you hit me in the head with a brick," Loki scowled at Thor.

Their frenemy relationship went way back, it seemed.

"Thor, did you really?" Sif asked.

"Hmm...That must be why you're so messed up," Thor said to Loki.

"Thanks a lot, Thor."

Even though it was horrible, Sif and I couldn't help laughing.

#

All of a sudden, it seemed, it was winter, with a ton of snow dropped to the ground overnight; the moat froze, and decorations for Yule—a real Yule log, mistletoe (which made Baldr flinch every time he walked by it), and holly—appeared. "We should go skating," Sif suggested, looking out the window as school let out. "The moat is frozen enough."

"Out there with Jormungand?" Thor scoffed. "It's probably a trap, and the first one to crack the ice is his next meal."

"You'll be first, then," Loki said, and Thor seized him by the front of his shirt.

"Guys," I said, "I don't want to end up in the principal's again." That got them to stop fighting.

"Anybody capable of such shameless self-promotion—" Loki pulled a holly leaf of the low-hanging ceiling decoration.

"You're just jealous because you don't get a holiday," Thor said, puffing up importantly. Odin's was Yule, and Thor's was Thoráblot.

"I'm not jealous of that self-important old hypocrite," Loki huffed.

"Watch whose dad you're insulting," Thor said, reaching for Mjollnir.

"There _was _once, on P. Odin's sabbatical," Sif said, leaning around Thor to talk to me, "when, or so we heard, he stopped nine guys outside a bar, threw up a bottle of beer and told them whoever grabbed it first could have it, and all nine of them killed each other fighting for it. The bottle smashed on the sidewalk, P. Odin got nine more guys for Valholl, and he went into the bar whistling and stole some mead of poetry from the Jotuness barista."

"Damn," I said. "He doesn't encourage a long and healthy lifestyle."

"Why I don't do gym," Loki said.

We were at the door to the exit when he touched my arm and pointed up. "The decorations do have some uses."

My face turned fire red. I wasn't paying attention and had ended up right under mistletoe with him. A smile played at the corner of his mouth. Sif and Thor nudged each other and laughed; we'd be entertainment for them at least, especially since I'd never—

Before I could say or do anything, Loki pulled me close, his lips on mine. I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck to draw myself up taller. Though I tried to keep up, he was a much more experienced kisser. My heart might've exploded and left a mess on the floor it was beating so hard when he let go. There was a wolf-whistle behind us, and Baldr ran off.

"Shut up!" I shouted after him, my face hotter than before.

"She looks like she's in shock," Thor told Loki. "You must be a lousy kisser."

"No," I said, ducking my head, "that'd be me."

"Was that your first kiss?" Thor asked me. "I'm sorry it was from that guy."

Loki glared at him. Then he smiled at me impishly and said, "You just need more practice." He lips brushed mine again.

I tried to clear my head of those soft lips and his taste, like cinnamon and spices—Dad would be _pissed _if he found out I'd been kissing the guy he said couldn't be my boyfriend—but I couldn't. The shock fading a little, I leaned my head against his shoulder. "You tricked me," I said, poking him, though with a smile.

"Oh, you liked it." He grinned, tweaking my hair and wrapping his arm around my waist. Did that mean we were official?

Thor cleared his throat. "Get a room, you two. You're gonna give me cooties."

We just laughed.

Sif grabbed his arm and smiled slyly. "I'm sure we could find more mistletoe."

"No!" _His _turn to go red.

"It's only fair," Loki said, laughing harder.

"Yeah, it's your turn to embarrass yourselves," I said, but they wouldn't do it.

Once we finally made it down to the moat, Thor started to turn around, but Sif and Loki caught him by the arms.

"You call _me _a coward," Loki said, rolling his eyes. "Who's afraid of a little snake?"

"That's not a little snake; that's the world's largest serpent." There was a quake in Thor's voice. Who knew he could get so scared?

"He's probably hibernating," Sif said. "It's too cold for a snake to move down there; come on, it'll be fun."

He shook his head.

"We don't have any skates," I realized. "Do you all?"

Thor pointed at me. "What she said."

"Don't be such a wuss," Loki said, clearly enjoying making Thor squirm more.

"We can make some skates," Sif said. "Come on, Thor; for me?"

"All right," Thor said with a sigh, giving up.

"Yay!" Sif kissed him on the cheek.

"_How _are you going to make skates?" I asked.

"The Svartalves," Thor suggested, and, as if right on cue, something or someone blew a ton of smoke from a lower window, scorching it black.

"I don't think you want to go to Svartalfheim right now," Sif said. "That looked like a dragon."

"A dragon in Svartalfheim?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. That's right," Thor said. "I'd heard from one of Dad's Svartalf assistants that one guy—Fatnir or Fafnur or something like that—had turned into a dragon because of a ring and was becoming the terror of Svartalfheim. The dragon-guy's brother Regis or Regir or whatever it is is trying to get some punk kid from Midgard to kill the dragon so Svartalfheim doesn't have to close."

A ring...Svartalves... "What did you say the curse on that ring was, Loki?" I asked, folding my arms.

"I don't recall any curse about 'anyone who owns this ring will become a dragon,'" he said, waving it off. "That sounds like a personal problem." I kept glaring at him until he threw up his hands. "It's _not_ my problem. It was a Svartalf ring; it's with a Svartalf; it's in Svartalfheim; it's their turn to deal with it."

"_All right_," I said. It really wasn't worth bothering about, unless the dragon burned down the school.

"So, the skates," Sif said, changing the subject and grabbing a couple of rocks. She touched her distaff from magic class to them, and the rocks appeared to look like skates. My eyes widened. That was cool. She made another pair the same way. I tried to copy her, closing my eyes and imagining the rocks as skates; when I opened them, there they were, shiny and the tips edged with an embossed design. They did turn out nice, if I did say so myself.

"Now come on before the magic wears off," Sif said. We strapped them on and were off. There was a small pond by our house I used to skate on some when it froze, but it'd been a year since I'd had a chance to practice. I glided over the surface of the ice, not as gracefully as Sif, who literally skated circles around Thor, lumbering along and checking each patch of ice for thickness, or Loki, who made skating figure eights backwards look like nothing, but still. The wind nipped at my face and tousled my hair. Loki grabbed me by the hand and spun with me. I laughed, my head dizzy.

"You cold?" he asked.

"I'm all right."

But he wrapped his coat around me, and I put my hands in his pockets, flushing but much warmer. Then I was the one who had to skate backwards, trying not to fall.

There was a crash, and Thor fell flat on his back with a thunderous look, and the ice cracked under him. Loki grinned, and I covered my face with my hands, trying not to smile. It was both funny and not. "Are you okay?" Sif asked, trying to pull Thor up, but the ice only cracked more.

"The ice was too thin over here," Thor complained, "and I tripped."

There was another ominous cracking.

"Maybe we should get off," Sif suggested, and we lost no time getting to dry land.

Beneath the black ice patch where Thor fell, I could've sworn there was a large eye, but maybe I was imagining things.

"Thanks a lot," Thor said, rubbing his back. "You almost got me killed. Skating on Jormungand's head, really."

"It wasn't on purpose," Sif said.

"I don't know about that," Thor said, jabbing a finger in Loki's direction.

"What'd _I _do?" he asked, lifting his arms. "It's not always my fault."

"Let's just be glad nobody got hurt," I said.

"Yeah," Sif agreed. "If we go inside, we might still be able to get hot chocolate or coffee from the cafeteria." She knew what would cheer Thor up, and he was up and off in a flash. We trailed behind, laughing.

#

The odd thing was that all the snow had melted by the first day of winter. Isn't that how it went?

The lake thawed, enough that, when we got to school one morning, we found Thor having an argument on the other side of the moat with an old guy in grey overalls riding a motorboat.

"Is that—" Sif asked, the sound dying in her throat.

Thor flipped the boat-guy off and started wading through the moat. "_What _is he doing?" Loki snorted. "For his being afraid of Jormungand, he doesn't seem to mind getting his legs eaten off now."

He began floundering up to his middle and then gave up and started back to walk around by foot.

"Should we get to class?" I asked. There were about five minutes left 'til school started.

"Nah. This is more fun," Loki said.

So we waited for him to get around the moat, sopping wet and looking about as happy about it as a drowned cat.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

He wrung out his white T-shirt and leather jacket. "I was trying to beat that Jormungand to a pulp for nearly drowning me the other day, and I needed a boat to do that. This old dude came up to me on a motorboat and offered to give me a ride. I said why not and offered him some of my after-school snacks as a reward—they're _amazing_—but he just jeered about me for boasting about my snacks when my mom was dead." A frightened look glimmered in his eye. "You'd think I'd know if my mom were dead."

"I hope that isn't true," Sif said.

"Me, too. He asked who I was and said I must be from poor stock, as it looked like I didn't own my own pants."

Loki burst out laughing so hard he had to lean against me to stay upright.

"I said I was Thor, son of Odin, and of some of the finest stock around, unlike him. He said he was Greybeard. Then we got into a fight about who did what when—He was always out fighting or hanging out with the ladies—he's so self-absorbed—when I was out beating up Jotuns and making the school safer. School kept getting closer to starting, and I told him to get me across so I didn't get wet, and he just said that the mighty Thor shouldn't be late. I retorted that he'd made me late. Then he told me to go find my mom and have a lousy journey, so I flipped him off for making me late."

"You don't own your own pants," Loki said, trying—and failing—to keep a straight face.

"Shut up," Thor snapped.

"You killed him," I joked.

"Then I'll save Heimdall a step," Thor said.

Some hassled, young-looking students running in late stopped to stare at us.

"There _are _children here," Sif said.

"What children?" Thor asked.

"The frosh." I nodded towards the kids, who ran inside.

"They won't last long here if they're _that _innocent," Loki said. True that.

"I just wish I knew who that boat dude was so I could whup him," Thor said.

"Greybeard," Loki said. "Hm. Didn't Odin give a stupidly-long speech one time about all his names—like something-something Greybeard..."

Thor smacked his hand in his palm. "Dammit. I can't believe I didn't recognize my own dad. I'm really gonna get him back for that."

"He _does _like to disguise himself, so don't feel too off about it," Sif said.

"And people think _I'm _the trickster around here," Loki said.

"Now I know why Dad pisses some people off," Thor said. "He's too focused on his own pleasure, while I'm over here sweating to keep the poor Midgardian kids safe."

"He's just a dirty old man," Loki said.

"Makes your jokes look amateur," I said.

"I should've thought of 'you don't own your own pants.'"

"Cut it out," Thor said. His brow wrinkling, he said, "I _am _kind-of worried about my mom."

"She's my first-period teacher," I said. "If she's not there, I'll let you know."  
"I hope she is," Sif said, "seeing as she's the ceramics teacher, too."

"I'm coming with you," Thor said, rushing to the front door.

#

Jord was _not _in first period, and, as Odin had said, she had died of a sudden health problem, and her cremation marred the Yule celebrations. We had to get a sub for class until a new teacher could be found, and Thor seemed a lot more subdued lately, despite Loki's attempts to cheer him up.

All the same, we were determined not to let the holiday be a complete downer.

"Would you be able to come to my parents' place?" Loki asked me on our way out of history. "They've been wanting to meet you."

I started. Meeting the parents—that was getting serious. "When?" It was Friday, so my parents might be expecting me by a certain time.  
"Tonight?" He smiled innocently.

"Um—yeah, probably. I just have to let my parents know." How was I going to sneak to his place without them knowing about it?

"Sorry my brothers are going to be there again; they're moochers." He rolled his eyes.

"That's all right; I'm used to it."

"Yours are very nice by comparison. Mine almost killed the neighbors' cat once with a BB gun; the neighbor came over shouting we were all going to be in jail by the time we were twenty. I don't know who was more pissed, the neighbor or the cat."

My jaw dropped as I pulled my cell phone out of my bag. "That's awful."

"Yeah. That's my brothers for you."

Hopefully I wouldn't have to dodge BB pellets tonight. I sent off a text asking my parents if it was okay for me to go to a friends' tonight. "They said that's fine."

"Great. You want to go now?"

"Yeah, sure." Swallowing the knot in my throat that I was misleading my parents, I wrapped my arm around him and let him put his around me. They wouldn't have to know.

#

"I hope you aren't allergic to cats," Loki said as he opened the door to the house, which just looked like a regular wooden cottage in a regular neighborhood.

"I'm not," I said, as a tortoiseshell cat rubbed against my leg.

He picked the cat up and handed her to me, where she curled up in my arms and began purring as I scratched behind her ear. "_Cute_."

"Yeah, she likes people."

There was a thundering down the stairs, the cat leaping out of my arms to cling to the mantle. "_Certain _people, anyway."

A cabinet teetered against the wall as one of the brothers shoved the other one into it. I lunged forward to right the cabinet before it crashed to the floor and all the contents with it, and Loki pried the cat off the mantel.

"Býlsteir! Helblindi!" that deep voice from the phone shouted.

The two guys, both with red-brown hair, who almost looked like twins, exchanged glances. "Now you've done it," one of them, whose nose kind-of looked like Loki's, said. Other than that, I could've sworn he'd been adopted.

"It was _your _fault," the other, slightly-older looking one said.

The one who spoke first finally noticed me. "Who's this?" he asked Loki. "Your girlfriend?"

"Sigyn," Loki said. "That's Helblindi—" he nodded to the one who'd spoken first, with the longer nose—"and Býlsteir"—he nodded to the other one. "Dad's been threatening to send them to Jotun Army school 'cause they party too much and are bombing all their classes," he whispered to me.

Jotun Army school? "That's a thing?" I whispered back.

"That's nothing to how many times he's gotten in trouble at school," Býlsteir said, pointing at Loki.

"Or the time he tried to set our pants on fire," Helblindi added.

I couldn't help laughing at the mental image.

"Don't laugh; you'll encourage him," Helblindi said.

Before Loki could retort, their dad stormed in. "_How _many times do I have to tell you not to fight inside? Take your fights outside, or your mother will have your heads for breaking her china." He almost exactly resembled Býlsteir and Helblindi and had such a fearsome expression _I _almost dived under the cabinet, and it wasn't directed at me.

"They nearly scared the cat to death," Loki said, only to get that withering glare in his direction.

"Take your damn cat outside, too," their dad said. "She's been stealing all the fish off the counter."

"She wouldn't do that." Loki scratched under the cat's chin.

The dad started to respond when his gaze fell on me. "_Who_—"

"Sigyn; she's new at our school this year."

"_Another _goddess? Will you ever find a Jotuness?" That glare found its way to me, and I tried not to step out the door. He didn't approve of me, any more than _my _dad did of Loki.

"_You _didn't marry a Jotuness, either," Loki retorted, which shoved his dad that much farther over the edge.

"Take your cat and your girl and get out of my sight. And stop wearing black so much; it's an eyesore."

"Let's go, Sigyn," Loki said quietly, leading the way to the basement. His brothers snickered, and he pulled a face at them before shutting the door behind us.

"I hope he _does _send them to the army," he muttered. "Sorry about them; they're a little crazy."

"They're—" I paused, searching for the right word.

"It's okay; you can say it. I know my dad's kind-of a jackass, just not—_all _the time. His name's Fárbauti, by the way." Cruel striker. It fit.

"I was going to say 'interesting,' but you're not wrong."

"I can't wait to move out of here." He nudged the cat off the laundry basket in the laundry room, but she just curled up deeper. "Guess we'll have to deal with cat hair in the wash, even though Mom doesn't like it. She's still at work," he added as he held open another door for me, to a smaller room with a bed crammed in one corner and a desk in the other, the clay statue of Sleipnir on it, and an explosion of papers, clothes and books he started shoving under the bed. "Sorry; I know you don't like messes."

"It's fine," I smiled. "Ours is a bit of a disaster zone right now, too." Still hadn't cleaned up everything from repainting the dining room.

"It's worth having a room to yourself, even if you can't stand up in it." He nodded up at the ceiling as he settled on the bed.

"I know it." That was the only nice thing about being a girl with only brothers; even if I had to sleep in the attic, at least I got my own room.

He pulled me onto his lap and kissed me, his hands in my hair, and I leaned into him, my hands edging up his shirt. We tumbled back onto the bed, our legs in a tangle. When we pulled apart, I laid there breathless, my heart in my mouth. Maybe this was going too fast—

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of my jaw. "You're beautiful," he breathed. "Your freckles look like stars."

I smiled. "I have so many of them Dad used to call me Freckles."

"They suit you." He kissed me on the ear, on the nose, his lips trailing back to mine. My heart grew warmer, like a bonfire at night; he really thought I was beautiful—

My hand trailed down his chest. "You're the most beautiful person I've met."

"I know."

Laughing, I kissed his throat and his shoulder.

Upstairs, a door clicked, and we sat up slowly. "That's probably Mom. She'd like to meet you. Her name's Laufey, by the way."

That was a much-nicer sounding name. "I guess we should head up," I said, straightening my clothes and smoothing out my hair as much as it could. On a whim, I took off my red plaid shirt, my white tank top still on underneath, and tied it around his waist. "Something that isn't black," I teased, his expression startled. "You can keep it; I have about fifty more."

His mouth twisted into a sideways smile, and he folded it on top of the bed before draping his coat over me. "Don't get cold."

I flushed. "Thanks."

As we went up, the cat stretched and jumped out of the laundry basket, as if knowing she'd get in trouble staying there, and followed us into the kitchen. Laufey had to be where Loki had gotten his looks from, because they were just alike, the same long face, green eyes, and wavy black hair, though Loki's was more red. Laufey kept hers pinned back, looking elegant. "Hi, nice to meet you," she said with a smile when Loki introduced me to her and shook her hand. _How _did she end up with Fárbauti?

"It's nice to meet you, too."

She put on an apron and took one look at the remains of the mackerel on the stove and another at the cat, who sat licking her paws. "Did _you _do this?" she asked, her hands on her hips. The cat just gave her an innocent look; she'd been trained well.

"I'll have to find something else to cook." She rummaged in the fridge and pulled out cabbage, part of a chicken, and carrots.

"I'll help if you like," I offered. She looked a little frazzled.

"No, that's all right," she smiled. "You can go on."

"Really, it's no trouble; I like to cook."

"In that case, you can help, too," she said to Loki, who stuck his tongue out at me; I shoved him playfully.

Laufey just smiled and handed me a bowl. "Do you know how to make crispbread?"

"Yeah."

So she set about the stove cooking the chicken for soup, while we attempted to make the crackers. More of the oats and flour ended up on each other than in the bowl, though; with a crooked grin at Loki, I dusted some on his nose. "You have something on your face."

"Oh, yeah?" With a wicked grin, he wiped an entire handful across my face. "So do you." I laughed and rubbed it off.

Laufey just shook her head and smiled into her pot.

**Chapter Seven**

Somehow the months flew into spring, and it was prom season, when hormones ran rampant, the guys tried to find the most elaborate ways to ask the girls out, and there were plenty of hurt feelings to go around, but nobody more so than Thrym, and maybe Hodr.

It began when Thor, his face redder than the furnaces in Muspelheim and his beard bristling, seized Loki by the shirt collar and hauled him away from the locker area one morning. "What's that about?" I asked Sif.

She shrugged. "He was pissed about something this morning but wouldn't say what."

"Let's follow them." We tracked them down to outside the deserted girls' and boys' restrooms I'd hid in earlier that year.

"I didn't take it," Loki said, leaning into the wall, away from Thor's flaring red face.

"Take what?" I asked.

"Mjollnir's gone missing," Thor said, turning around to face us. "You can't tell anyone, or I'd be the laughingstock of the school. All the Jotuns would come fighting in our hallways."

"But Mjollnir always comes back to you," Sif said.

"I'm telling you, it's gone!" He pulled out the keychain from his belt; sure enough, it _was _gone. "Who could've taken it, if not _that _guy?" He jabbed his finger at Loki, who held up his hands.

"I'm being falsely accused. It was probably the Jotuns trying to mess with you."

"Yeah." Thor stroked his beard. "It might've been. Should you go to Jotunheim, or should I?"

"_I'll _go, since you're a wuss without your hammer."

"_Hey_! Once I get Mjollnir back, I'll whup you, and _then _we'll see who the wuss is!"

Loki just stuck his tongue out and sidestepped Thor for the elevators; the door closed, and he was gone. Hopefully they wouldn't take him out for the Utgarda-Loki incident.

"There's one fool out of the way," Thor grumbled.

"What do the Jotuns want with Mjollnir?" Sif asked.

"Revenge, probably," I said. "Or girls." There was a rumor that whoever got Mjollnir could invite a goddess to prom.

"I don't know what Jotun could succeed in getting a goddess for a date," Thor said, "except a certain somebody's dad." He glared at the elevator.

"How'd that happen?" I asked. I hadn't stopped wondering since I went to their house—and never went back, since it was clear Fárbauti hated me.

"I'd heard it was kidnapping," Thor said. "Runs in the family."

"Poor Idun," Sif said.

"Poor _Laufey_," I said. She'd really gotten unlucky.

The elevator doors opened again, and we stopped talking at once.

"Victory or defeat?" Thor asked.

Loki started to lean against a windowsill, but Thor snapped, "Don't sit down, or you'll forget."

"I went on a long and arduous journey for you, and you tell me I can't even stop and rest?"

"Just spit it out."

"So rude. Thrym, the senior class president, told me he buried Mjollnir deep below the moat, and nobody could get it unless he had Freyja for his prom date."

"Why would anyone in their right mind go with Thrym to prom?" Sif made a face.

But Thor was already halfway down the hall. "Let's go find Freyja."

"I know where she is; she's in my first period," I called after him.

He blanched; he hadn't been back in that classroom since his mom died. But he took a deep breath and said, "I have to get Mjollnir back."  
"NO!" Freyja shrieked once we found her, her necklace shattering when we told her about Thrym's prom request. Several people turned to stare on their way to class; she could put Thor to shame when it came to her temper. "Hel will burn before I ever go out with that asshole," she said, more quietly. "It's _your _toy; you lose it, _you _find it."

"Told you she'd say no," Loki said after she stormed inside the greenhouse.

"Now what?" Thor asked when we reconvened at lunch, him picking at his sandwich. It was a sure sign of the times when _Thor _wouldn't eat. "Mjollnir will rot at the bottom of the moat for Jormungand to play with."

"_You _could dress up as Freyja on the Jotuns' prom night," Loki suggested, and both Sif and I giggled at the mental image of Thor busting out the seams of a dress.

"Do I _look _like Freyja to you?" Thor asked. "Not even Thrym is _that _stupid."

"This might actually work," Sif said. "I have a dress from junior prom and a scarf, but the dress will need to be—_altered_. And you'll need to lose the beard."

"The beard goes _nowhere_." He stroked it proudly.

"He's a babyface without it," Sif said, pulling at his beard.

"Am not—"

"You look nice without it."

"The ladies will love it, Thor," Loki said, only to get his face pushed in his tray.

"I'm not going anywhere without my beard, and I'm not going to Jotunheim alone."

"Don't look at me," Sif and I said in unison.

"You'll be my wing—uh, _woman_, then," Thor said to Loki, who wiped the rest of his lunch off his face.

"As you wish, Freyja," he said with a mock curtsey.

"This is going to be so much fun," I said to Sif. After all, how many chances did anyone get to dress up their boyfriends?

#

Sif's parents were out of town the night of the Jotuns' prom, which was before ours, so we went over to her place to get them ready. The sparkly blue dress Sif found and the one old red one I had did need to be altered, which we did a slipshod job of, but it was already getting late. The guys both squirmed when we made them sit in front of Sif's vanity for a hair, makeup, and nail job, but we told them no girl would go to prom without it, _especially _not Freyja and her friends.

"Hold _still_," Sif said as she put the rest of Thor's lip gloss on.

"How can you _stand _to do this everyday?" he asked. That's why I didn't wear makeup.

"I don't want to look like I got hit by a truck," she said.

"You look pretty even without it." Sif blushed. _Aww_.

"Almost done," I said as I finished braiding Loki's hair.

"How do I look?" Thor asked.

"Stunning," Loki snorted. I had to hide my smile behind my hand; Thor bore an unfortunate resemblance to a hog with makeup on.

"You look like your mom," Thor retorted. That _was _kind of true, too.

"At least I don't look like a bearded lady."

"Dad has a razor if you'd like to use it," Sif said to Thor.

"_No_; the beard's not going anywhere."

She rolled her eyes at us. "Use this scarf at least," she said, draping a blue scarf over his face.

Loki laughed even harder, leaning his head against me. "Now you look like an old widow."

"You're gonna be sorry when I get Mjollnir back."

"Don't kill each other before your get back," I told them.

"No promises," Thor said.

Sif pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of both of them.

"Give me that!" Thor lunged for the phone, but she held it out of his reach.

"It's mine, and you can't even tell it's you."

"Could you send me that?" I asked her.

"Sure." She typed in something, and my phone buzzed.

"Thanks." This needed photographic evidence.

"By the way, the prom starts soon, so you might want to get going," Sif said, putting away her phone.

"You ready, Freyja?" Loki toyed with Thor's scarf as they started towards the door.

"I'll bite your hand off."

"You're being very unladylike."

"Don't have too much fun," I told them.

"We won't," Loki said. The door closed, and the night swallowed them up.

"Think they'll be okay?" Sif asked me.

"Why wouldn't they?"

She shrugged. "Thrym might throw a hissy fit once he finds out."

"That's what Mjollnir is for."

"If they get it back."

"They will."

It was useless to worry about it, so we tried to do homework, which we gave up on because it was Friday and we couldn't focus anyway; we ended up flipping through channels idly—nothing on—and braiding each other's hair. It was getting closer and closer to midnight, and we were about to fall asleep when they finally showed up.

"Did you get it back?" I asked, stretching and standing up.

Thor held up the pendant in victory; Sif started to hug him and then stood back. "Is that blood?" There was something red on the pendant.

"That's a long story," Thor said, with a sideways look at Loki.

"When we got to the gym, they'd already started dinner," Loki said. "Thrym was pacing around with one of his friends, saying he was scared Freyja had stood him up, when we came up to him; he treated Thor like the guest of honor, at least until Thor started to practically eat the buffet table."

"I was hungry," Thor defended himself. Sif and I exchanged glances, grinning. That _would _be Thor.

"Thrym threw the table across the gym and said, 'I've never seen a girl with such a disgusting appetite,'" Loki continued, "so I told him, "Freyja couldn't eat all week because she was waiting to see you.' That quieted him down, until the dance, when he tried to lift the veil and give—_Freyja _a kiss; he leaped back the entire length of the gym and cried, 'Freyja's eyes are burning.' So I told him, 'Freyja couldn't sleep all week because she was waiting to see you.' Then he brought in Mjollnir to ask _Freyja _to dance, but unfortunately for him, Freyja didn't dance with him—she cracked Mjollnir over his head. We ran for our lives before the other Jotuns could figure out who we were, Thor knocking out every Jotun who stood in his way."

"_Guys_," Sif said, shaking her head.

"But we got Mjollnir back," Thor pointed out. Which was more important, of course.

"_That'll _be a prom to remember," I said.

"None of them will remember that," Loki said. "They were all out cold."

I sighed. At least they'd gotten what they'd come for.

#

Hodr, like Thrym, also got rejected. He was arguing loudly with his brother Baldr outside the cafeteria, where everyone could hear. "It's not my problem you didn't ask her in time," Baldr snapped.

"I was going to," Hodr shouted. "You always get there first."

"She likes me more than you. Why would she want you?"

Hodr lunged forward as if about to come to blows, but he stopped himself. "You might be prettier now, but that'll be your downfall."

"Don't remind me; those dreams are getting more frequent."

"I hope they wake you up and haunt you at night."

I shivered as we passed by them on the way up the stairs from the cafeteria from class. What Odin had told me hit me—"my son Baldr will be no more...chained until Ragnarok." Not so soon. Please couldn't it wait a few more years? Hodr's curse was unkind, but maybe I could find my own spell to undo this.

"Fighting over Nanna," Sif said, shaking her head when they were out of sight. "They've both been in love with her since they came here; you'd think they'd be over it by now."

"It's called sibling rivalry. I know; I have to _live _with them," Thor said. That was right—they were his brothers, too.

"About as annoying as my brothers," Loki said.

Thor rolled his eyes. "Speaking of prom, you have a date yet?" he asked him.

Loki leaned over and smiled at me. "Will you go to prom with me?"

"Uh—yeah," I said automatically.

Loki gave Thor a look that said, _See?_

"You need to try harder than that," Thor said.

"He even let me hold Mjollnir," Sif said.

I had already dropped out of the conversation. There was prom—how could I convince my parents to let me go with him?—and Baldr and Hodr, which was a bigger problem. I'd take on the other one first.

#

"Could I talk with you?" I asked my parents as we came back in from evening chores.

"You always can," Mom said. "What about?"

I sucked in my breath and stopped staring at my shoes. "It's about prom."

"Are you planning to go to junior prom this year?" Dad asked.

"Some of the seniors invited me to go to their prom with them." They didn't raise their voices or anything, just exchanged glances.

"Boys or girls?" Mom asked.

"Both." _Please _say yes.

"This isn't the boy who brought you home last time, is it?" Dad asked, warning in his eyes.

"Just hear me out—"

"I thought I told you not to see him, and you broke your word." The disappointment in his voice cut deeper than any shouting would have. Why did I say yes so quickly? I should've known.

"Can't I have one night—"

"All the other times you said you were at a friend's house, were you really with him?" Now his voice began to rise.

"Please, can't we keep this calm?" Mom asked.

"You keep interrupting me! Won't you even listen to what I was going to say?" That came out more loudly than I meant it to, and they both gave me a look that said, _Not so much attitude._

Drawing another breath, I continued, "I realize you've told me not to see him, and I shouldn't have deceived you about it, and I'm sorry. I just wanted one night to be special, and I wanted to be able to be with my friends, instead of alone. I've been working hard, here and at school; I've been keeping my grades up. Will you let me have just one night?"

Dad opened his mouth, starting to say, _No_, but Mom started first. "I know you've been working hard. I remember when I went to prom in high school with your dad; we had a fun time, and I want you to be able to have fun, too. I'll let you go this time."

His shoulders caving in, Dad added, "It's _just _one time, and you have to be back by eleven, do you understand?"

"Thank you! I mean, thank you." It was all I could do not to give them a bear hug.

#

"The prom dresses are all so—" I flipped through the racks at the department store, all filled with strapless or tulle or rhinestone dresses.

"Sparkly?" Sif offered, her hands full of blue and gold dress, their bodices bedecked with jewels, which looked really pretty on her. But on me, they made me look like a freckled disco ball.

"Girly. I wish we didn't have to wear a dress to prom."

"We've already seen the guys in one, so it's only fair." The sales associate stared at us as she passed by. "There are some consignment stores around," Sif said, lowering her voice. "You might look nice in something vintage."

So, after I helped her pick out a dress—midnight blue A-line with rose-gold rhinestones on the bodice, which looked super pretty on her—we went over to a consignment shop nearby in an old house. It was easy to get lost in the racks of clothes in every hue. "I think my mom used to have a dress like this," Sif said, holding up a white and blue sleeveless dress with a full skirt.

"You should get that," I said. "It'd look cute."

"I spent too much already." She put it up and pulled out a simple red dress with lace in the sleeves. "You should try this one; it's so you."

When I went to try it on, it fit, and it swished when I spun in it. "Get it," Sif said when she saw it. "It really looks like _you_ wear it."

I stood in front of the mirror by the clothes rack and twisted my hair back; for once, I looked elegant, not like a farm girl. Would he think so, too?

#

The night of the prom, we decided to meet at my place—Thor's dad was the principal, Sif's parents were back in town, and Loki's dad hated everyone's guts, which left me. My parents weren't too happy about it but said it was okay if we didn't stay too long.

Sif came over earlier to get ready, and she just finished braiding my hair up around my head when a car honked outside. "That would be them," I said. Mom was probably cringing when she heard that.

"They sound ready to go," Sif said, her fishtail braid swishing around her as she grabbed her purse, which matched her dress and glittery eyeshadow. I'd gone for just simple mascara and lip gloss, as little as I could get away with.

They were at the door when we got downstairs, Thor with his hair and beard trimmed and in a crisp white shirt and blue suit—he cleaned up nicely—and Loki, more handsome, if possible, than ever, his hair combed back, and in a pale green shirt, black dress slacks, and a red tie that matched my dress. His eyes grew wide when he caught sight of me, and I fell into his arms, both of us laughing, because we'd had the same reaction.

Sif's phone clicked. "Did you really get a picture of that?" I asked.

"I had to; it was too cute."

"I have something for you," Loki told me, slipping his class ring onto my finger; it was too big, of course, but pretty and unusual, with silver knotwork snaking around it and closed with a wolf's head finial.

"Thank you," I breathed. "I'll keep it forever."

"When are you getting married?" Thor joked.

"That's not your business," Loki said.

"I have to see it to believe he's really marriageable," Thor said.

"You'll have to wait a few years," I said, and Loki gave him a shove.

"I hope I don't hear anything about anyone getting married," Dad called.

"Only joking," I called back.

"I should hope so."

"Wait," Mom said as she came into the hall. "Let me get a picture."

"_Mom_," I said.

"Stand a little closer." We got out in front with the barn in the background, Sif squeezing in next to Thor, and Loki with his arm around my waist. The camera clicked. "You can go on; I hope you have fun."

"We will," Loki assured her.

We were off.

#

Prom was in the gym, but it was decorated nicely with glitter, streamers, tablecloths, and china, all in the school's colors, and Sif told Thor not to eat the whole buffet again, so he dutifully obliged. We danced most of the night, Loki's arm around my waist, and I leaned against his shoulder, only stopping once to get something else to drink; when I started back to the gym, Loki had found Hodr alone, skulking in a corner, and had put his arm around him with a sly smile. I hid against the door to listen in, but they were too far away. It didn't appear to be a friendly meeting. Loki glanced over, his eyes meeting mine. Pulling away from the door, I ran upstairs to the classrooms and stopped at the magic classroom. I stepped in and took one of the practice distaffs; closing my eyes, I breathed in to try and clear my mind and sang under my breath, "May the death of Baldr not come to pass. May Ragnarok not come to pass. May the gods and goddesses solve their differences with themselves and the Jotuns peacefully, and may the world remain intact."

Footsteps made me put the distaff away and step outside the classroom, closing the door. Just who I didn't want to see. "Sigyn." Loki touched my shoulder, and I pulled back. "Are you all right?"

"I _was_, until—" I broke off.

"Go ahead; blame me. It's always my fault."

"That's not what I was saying." What was he being so touchy about?

"What then?"

"You don't have to—it's Hodr's and Baldr's fight; let them have it out."

"Oh, so you're defending Baldr now?"

"_No_. What's your _problem_? I'm just saying you don't have to meddle in everyone else's issues. Let them be."

"What's _my _problem? What's yours? He knocked you down, he made fun of you in class; you know he's not a nice person."

"That's not a reason to—" I couldn't say it. "There's never a reason."

"Does everything have to have a reason? Do the Norns? Do the Volvas? Does Odin?"

"Fate is changeable; you don't have to follow everything they say just because they say it. We all have a choice."

"Small choices, maybe, but that won't stop Ragnarok happening. If I didn't start it, someone else would. It's _supposed _to happen. Let me tell you something; I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but you should know." He stepped closer. "Odin told me to start Ragnarok."  
I stepped back. That sounded unlikely. "Why?"

"Because he knows it can't be stopped, and he knows the world must be made a new one out of its chaos."

I had nothing to say to that, my head still reeling from what he'd said. If it was true, why didn't Odin say so, instead of letting everyone hate—?

More footsteps down the hall, and Thor and Sif came up by us.

"Found her," Loki said to them.

"We were wondering where you were," Sif said. "He told us you ran off."

I still didn't answer, folding my arms and biting my lip. He probably didn't tell them why.

"Come back downstairs," Sif told me. "You're missing all the fun."

There wasn't much else I could do or anywhere I could hide since they'd found me, so I went with them, but the rest of the night was ruined.

**Chapter Eight**

"How was the senior dinner with the principal?" I asked them on the way to the field by the bridge and the moat, where there were some games for the seniors. It was senior week already, and death week—that was, finals week—for everyone else.

"Fine," Sif said testily, "until _he _showed up." She nodded at Loki, who didn't look at her; he'd tried to take my hand, but I wouldn't let him. Things had turned frostier in our group since prom.

"We were just sitting down to dinner when he came in, _late_, as usual," Sif continued, "and he started insulting everyone there. He called Odin a sissy and all the girls whores, but they gave him plenty of what he deserved back, the hypocrite."

"You're disgusting," I told him. It'd be just like him to do that.

"I was telling it like it was," he said.

"Not everyone _appreciates _it being put so bluntly," Sif told him. It sounded like he'd insulted her, too.

"I came in late," Thor added, "because I was making sure the Jotuns wouldn't give us any trouble at graduation, and _everyone _was in an uproar. That _idiot _seemed to be the cause of it. When I asked what the problem was, they all started talking at once about how he'd insulted them, so I told him to give his insults to Mjollnir or be a coward. He called _me _a coward and then ran out. Way to back your words up."

"I've seen you knock out too many Jotuns to be stupid enough to stand in front of your hammer," Loki said.

Only the people shouting by the moat stopped Thor's retorts. All our classmates were gathered around Hodr and Baldr, who were circling each other with weapons. "What's going on?" I asked them.

"Fight over Nanna," Sif said.

No. Oh, no.

Loki slipped off towards the crowd before I could stop him. "Get back here, Loki Laufeyjarson!" I called after him. Of course, he ignored me.

"I'll make sure this doesn't get out of hand," Thor said, patting his hammer as we came over to the crowd.

Too late—Hodr struck Baldr in the chest with a sword. He fell over, dead on the spot. I swayed like Baldr, the world roaring around me, and Sif caught me before I hit the ground. "Are you okay? You look sick."

"I—I'm all right." I wiped sweat off my brow and sat up. My stomach turned in knots. It didn't work. My spell didn't work.

The crowd had turned on Hodr, who was surrounded with no way out, and drove him to the moat. But a tiny baby, no more than a day or so old, came out of the crowd and stabbed Hodr, who fell to the ground, dead. "Hail Vali, son of Odin!" the crowd cheered, lifting the baby up.

The world flashed red as blood for a moment. I sat up as Frigg knelt in the midst of the crowd, holding Baldr, while Odin sat beside her, rubbing her back. "I'll go to Hel and retrieve Baldr's spirit," Hermod, another of our classmates, offered.

"Thank you," Odin said, and Hermod hurried off. "Where's Loki?" Odin asked. "He taunted us yesterday, and he can't get away with it." Everyone searched around in the crowd, but he was gone.

"Search for him; he must be found," Odin said. The others ran in different directions, searching.

Nothing else mattered at that point. I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled off, my stomach still lurching. I had to find Loki before they did and warn him. He couldn't—the cave—

"Sigyn," Sif called after me. "Wait!"

I didn't answer. Everybody else was searching along the banks of the moat or the trees nearby or the wall, and some went inside the school. It all seemed too obvious. Surely Heimdall would've seen him if he tried to leave by the wall or the bridge, and surely, he could be easily spotted running on foot or in the classrooms. If he were a shapeshifter and could hide anywhere, where could he be?

"Sigyn." A grey-bearded man in grey overalls came up to me. "Surely Loki told you something about where he'd go; he trusts you the most. Where is he?"

I shook my head. It was flattering that he'd thought Loki had trusted me, but he hadn't, not really, or he'd have told me more. And why did this guy seem to think I was guilty by association? I'd tried to stop Loki, but he couldn't be stopped, and maybe shouldn't be. "He didn't tell me anything. Even if he had," I added recklessly, "I wouldn't tell you, Odin."

"You're clever," Odin said, "maybe too clever. That, I suspect, is why he preferred you." Then he was gone. Something warm like a flame flickered in me. Odin could tell Loki's feelings for me had been real, and that was enough.

Jormungand's tail splashed lazily in the moat, as if oblivious or happy about the bloodshed. The moat! Nobody would ever go near it or Jormungand. That must be where he was. Making sure no one else was around—they'd mostly dispersed—I knelt at the water's edge. A fish bubbled to the surface, a red salmon, blinking up at me.

"Loki," I whispered.

He dove beneath the surface and came up a little ways ahead, his fin waving as if calling me to follow him. I started along the edge of the moat to the north. I hadn't got very far when Hermod returned to where Baldr had been killed and shouted, "Hey! Everyone come here." The classmates who'd been out searching came back, and I went with them so they wouldn't know what I'd been up to.

"Hel said she wouldn't give back Baldr unless everyone wept for him, so we need to prove for her everyone will miss him." There'd never been such a chorus of weeping, but I stayed silent, my head bowed so they wouldn't notice. I couldn't find it in my heart to cry for him, when it was already doing so for a different reason. "Hey, you," Hermod said to a Jotuness, "why aren't you crying? You'll ruin it."

"Thokk won't cry for Baldr, except dry tears," the Jotuness answered, "for I never cared for him, dead or alive; Hel can keep him." Thokk glanced at me, and I fingered the class ring in my pocket.

"She will now, because of you," Hermod said. "We have Thokk to thank that Baldr won't return until Ragnarok." Several of the others jeered at her, but she was already gone. I slipped away from the moat to follow her—him—back up the moat. My phone rang in my pocket, giving me away. I reached into my pocket to silence it, but my finger paused on the decline call button—it was Mom and Dad. I breathed out and stepped behind an ash tree to answer. "Sigyn, are you all right?" Mom asked me, her voice cracking. "We've been trying to contact you, but we couldn't get through. We heard from the principal that there was a double murder at the school, and something of a riot but that it was under control, and we wanted to make sure everything was safe."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Parents couldn't stop being parents, but this wasn't an opportune time. I had to find Loki and get out of here. "Could I please call you back later?"

"Sigyn," Dad said, his voice taut. "I need to ask you something. The principal wouldn't say who was involved in the murders, just that it was another student. But we heard from Sif's parents there was a fight at senior dinner last night started by one of the students named Loki—wasn't that the boy you brought home? I need you to answer me."

I didn't. "I _have _to go." Thor had broken away from the group with a fishing rod and was also heading north.

"Not until you answer me," Dad said.

Behind him, Mom added, "Should we come pick you up?"

"No, the place is walled, and there's a guard, remember? You wouldn't be able to get in."

"Oh, that's right. I forgot. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm _fine_. I'm not coming back to this school next year; I hate it here. Everyone's so hypocritical."

"What do you mean?" Mom asked.

I had no time to explain. Something caught in my throat; I almost choked as I said, "I won't be coming back home anytime soon, either." How could I tell them I might never be home again?

"What do you mean?"

I swallowed back the hardness in my throat and turned the phone off. They were probably staring at it, panicking, but there was nothing I could do. Thor was too far ahead and too fast. I ran after him along the moat, the salmon jumping ahead of me. The splashing led me away from the moat to a stream the fed into until it forked in two directions; Thor took the mouth, the deeper one, near a cave, and the salmon took the shallower one. I ran alongside him, but we didn't make it far before the splashing stopped, and so did my heart. The salmon was gone.

Thor gave a yell, dropping the salmon into the water as it bit him. "Let him go!" I called to Thor. "It's just a fish." The wall was so close, and there was a crack in it we could've gone through.

"You don't fool me, either of you," he called back. "I know you had to be up to something when you left the group and came this direction, so I followed you. Here you are, and here he is." Where the salmon had been, Loki struggled to hold himself up above the current that went against him; he grabbed at a stone, but it was too slick, and he went under again. "Not much of a swimmer, are you?" Thor asked.

I knelt at the edge of the water, grabbing at an overhanging branch, and held out my hand; he reached for mine, but couldn't quite make it, and I almost overbalanced into the water. I couldn't swim, either. "Thor, help!" I told him. It was more worthwhile to keep him alive, even if Thor imprisoned him, than to let him drown.

"What makes your think _I _can swim?" he said, turning pale.

"You _have _a fishing rod."

"Oh, oh, yeah." He grabbed at the overhanging branch with one hand and held out the fishing pole with the other, which Loki grabbed, and Thor pulled him to the riverbank, where he was in a shivering, coughing heap. The game was up. I wrapped my overshirt around him and slapped my hand against his back to force up more water. When he stopped coughing, he rubbed his face dry with the edge of my shirttail. "Thanks."

"I didn't do anything," I said, wrapping my arms around him to help him warm up, and leaned his head under my chin. He was getting me wet, but I didn't care.

"I heard you tell Odin you wouldn't tell him where I was if you knew," he said. Maybe that's why Odin came to me, after all, so Loki would know I still cared for him.

"Don't think I'm not still mad at you," I said, but it was hard to be, in a way. Everyone was as safe as they could be, and maybe everything, though it had turned out wrong, had turned out how it should. I'd tried to stop Ragnarok, but it was set in motion, and couldn't be stopped now.

"Don't think _I'm _not pissed," Thor said. "Those were my brothers who got killed back there." It seemed like the end of their friendship, however tenuous it had been.

"What did you tell Hodr at prom?" I asked Loki. It had to have something to do with this.

"Just that there was a sword—called Mistletoe—and he might like to use it. That was all."

Odin, Sif and a Midgardian student—Thorkill—behind him, was there in front of the cave, with the chains and the poisonous snake. "I won't have you killed," Odin said, "I need you yet. Thor, hold him down for the chains."

Loki tried to run, but Thor seized him and held him down, kicking and thrashing, while Thorkill secured the chains and put the venomous snake above Loki's head. Then Odin offered me a bowl. It was just as he'd said.

"You don't have to do that," Sif said, touching my arm. "You don't have to give up your future for some cave; I'd wanted to go to college with you and be able to hang out."

Had she meant that, or had someone told her to say that? Her gaze seemed sincere. There was Odin, with the bowl; Thor, standing outside the cave wall and watching; and Loki, trying to crane his head away from the snake dripping venom, but it didn't work; some splashed in his face, and he thrashed and cried out, the ground shaking, and burned his skin. I took the bowl. It wasn't what I'd wanted—if I could've gone to college with them, or gotten a job, or, deities forbid it, been able to marry Loki and have kids with him, I would've—but I couldn't let him get hurt, either.

"Sigyn," Loki said, grimacing. "Just go away; don't bother about me. You have your own life."

I settled onto the rocky outcropping by his head and held out the bowl under the snake, the venom dripping into it. "Please tell my parents why I can't come back," I said to the others.

"I will," Odin said. "It seems you've made your choice." And I could make no other than the Volva had predicted.

"Sigyn," Sif said, "I'll miss you; I'll come see you."

"I'll look forward to it," I said, with a sad smile.

"It won't be as much fun without you all," Thor said.

"Tell Heimdall I'll miss him," Loki said.

Thor snorted. "He'll miss you more."

Then they were gone, and we were alone, with just a fraction of the time we had left together.


End file.
